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Wanderings in Italy 




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VICENZA, A PALLADIAN CORNER 



Wanderings 



in 



Italy 



BY 



GABRIEL FAURE 



BOSTON & NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1919 









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Printed in Great Britain. 






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PUBLISHER'S NOTE 

Among the innumerable volumes devoted to Italy 
none has had more appreciative recognition in France 
than M. Gabriel Faure's Heures d'ltcdie. No writer has 
more delicately suggested the enchantment of the Latin 
land and the spell it casts over the traveller, and none 
takes us more persuasively off the beaten track to lead 
us to sanctuaries of art and beauty so little known to 
the ordinary tourist as Castelfranco, Pieve di Cadore 
and Saronno. M. Faure is an ideal guide for the 
educated pilgrim. He has a genuine love of Nature 
and a painter's eye for scenery. But he does not 
merely evoke the picturesque. His wide reading and 
artistic culture are evident on every page, and the 
happy allusion, the apt quotation and the romantic 
incident perpetually stimulate the reader. Now when 
we may hope once more to visit the delightful land an 
English version of this distinguished book, completed 
by notes on the terra redenta, should be welcome. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Lake Orta with Island of San Giulio 


To ace page 

. 14 


San Petronio, Bologna 


. 100 


Aroh of Augustus, Rimini 


. 118 


Amphitheatre, Verona 


. 160 


Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza 


. 174 


Piazza del Duomo, Trent 


. 282 



CONTENTS 



Paet I.— piedmont-lombardy 



CHAP. 






PAGE 


I. 


Orta 


. 11 


n. 


Saronno 




. 17 


in. 


NOVAHA . 




. 23 


IV. 


Varallo 




. 26 


V, 


Vaeese . 




. 32 


VI. 


COMO 




. 35 


vn. 


ISEO 




. 40 


vni. 


Brescia , 




. 48 


IX. 


Bergamo 




. 68 


X. 


Bett-agio 




. 66 




Part II. EMILIA 




I. 


PlACENZA .... 


. 75 


11. 


BoRGO San Donnino. 


. 79 


ni. 


Parma 


. 84 


IV. 


MODENA 


. 91 


V. 


Bologna 


. 96 


VI. 


Faenza and Cbsena 


. 105 


VII. 


Rtmtni . 


. . • • 


. HI 



Part III.— UMBRIA 

I. Perugia 123 

II. Umbrian Art 130 

III. Assisi 139 

IV. Montefaloo 147 

vll 



viii 


CONTENTS 

Part IV. VENETIA 




CHAP. 




PAGE 


I. 


Verona ...... 


155 


II. 


ViCENZA 






161 


III. 


CONEGTTANO . 






177 


IV. 


Bassano 






182 


V. 


Maser . 






188 


VI. 


Fanzolo 






193 


VII. 


FUSINA . 






196 


VIII. 


Maloontenta 






. 201 


IX. 


MiRA . 






205 


X. 


Stra . 






. 210 


XI. 


MONSELICE . 






. 214 


XII. 


ESTE . 






. 218 


XIII. 


ArquI . 






. 222 


XIV. 


Treviso 






. 231 


XV. 


CASTHT/FRANCO 






. 234 




Part V. TYROL, FRIULI AND 






NEW ITALY 




I. 


The Dolomites .... 


. 243 


II. 


From Cortina to Pieve 


. 251 


III. 


PiEVE Dl Oadore .... 


. 255 


IV. 


Belltjno 






. 264 


V. 


PORDENONE . 






. 270 


V. 


Udine . 


. 




. 272 


VII. 


Aquileia 






. 280 


VIII. 


Trent and Triesg 


CE 


» • • 


. 283 



PART I 

PIEDMONT-LOMBARDY 



WANDERINGS IN ITALY 



CHAPTER I 

ORTA 

Often when entering Italy by the Simplon, I had 
thought of makmg a slight dHour and stopping at Orta. 
But my eagerness to reach Milan and Venice had always 
prevented this. As, however, this year I have not 
the leisure necessary for the delights of early autumn 
on the lagoon, I will turn the few days of liberty at my 
disposal to good account by visiting certain nooks and 
comers • around the lakes which are unknown to me 
Surely in this region, as throughout Latin territory, 
there must be exquisite scenery and interesting sanc- 
tuaries of art. 

Accordingly, at Domodossola I left the express train 
which brings the traveller so swiftly to the Italian 
descent, that for a moment he is dazzled by the 
splendour of the sudden light, and I boarded a little 
train, the carriages of which seemed antediluvian 
after the luxurious sleeping car. It follows the old 

line of Novara, which one used to take in former days 

11 



12 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

on arriving by the Simplon diligence. The direct line 
to Lake Maggiore was not laid till after the opening 
of the tunnel. For some fifteen miles, the two railways 
run side by side, and some of the stations are indeed 
common to both. They part company at Cuzzago, 
and after crossing the Tosa and skirting the western 
base of Mottarone, we came out on Lake Orta, the 
ancient Cusio of the Romans. 

A spot of infinite sweetness and charm 1 I am not 
sure, indeed, whether it is not the most perfect of all 
the Lombard lakes — for it may be included in the 
Lombard group, although, like the greater and more 
beautiful part of Maggiore, it is in Piedmontese territory. 
Less wild than Lugano, less voluptuous then Lario, 
less grandiose than Maggiore, it has more general 
harmony than any one of them. All the proportions 
are absolutely right ; there is not a discordant note. 
The wooded hills surrounding it follow the curves 
best adapted to the windings of the shores ; we cannot 
believe that the same hand drew these supple lines 
and the harsh profile of the mountains which seem to 
be thrusting back rude Germany into another world. 
Its island of San Giulio summarises all the various 
beauties of the Borromean isles. The point of Orta 
is hardly less graceful than the promontory of Bellagio. 
And the Lake has preserved a quality which is gradually 
passing away from its more illustrious rivals as they 
are invaded, transformed and disfigured by civilisation, 
namely : the calm of Nature. For hours one may 
listen to the lapping of the waters without hearing the 
vibrations of motor engines ; a single small steamer 
suffices for the service of the ports. The automobiles 
that venture so far from the highway as the quay 
of Orta are very few in number. It is one of the last 
comers in Italy left unspoilt by modernism and progress. 



SITUATION OF ORTA 18 

But, alas ! this will not be true for long ! The dwellers 
on its shores wish to attract tourists ; they form 
Committees of enterprise ; they are annoyed to hear 
their lake called Cenerentola (Cinderella), because it 
lies forgotten among its elder sisters. Before they 
have realised their ambitions let us enjoy the peace 
of a region where very soon the quiet languor of autumn 
days will be a memory of the past. 

At present Orta is the ideal refuge of dreamers and 
real lovers. A haunt of peace, everything here invites 
to tenderness, without that perpetual beckoning of 
pleasure which makes Como so attractive to those who 
seek the illusion of love. Here, far from the crowd, 
one does not feel, as on the shores of Bellagio and 
Cadenabbia, that kind of external fascination and 
diffusion of individuality which makes one half un- 
conscious and induces a certain intoxication. Here 
one spends days that seem empty days when nothing 
happens, but which will seem beautiful later because 
they were made up of happiness. We get used to 
happiness as to health so rapidly that we cease to 
notice it. The more saturated with it is the air we 
breathe, the more we assume that we have never 
breathed any other. Rather should we take note of 
our joys each evening, and mark with a white stone 
the hours when life was sweet and good ! 

Orta is delightfully situated at the foot of a sort 
of mountainous promontory, which leaves but scanty 
space for houses at its base on the shores of the lake. 
The little town is indeed but one long street parallel 
with the bank, interrupted in the middle by a shady 
piazza with a tiny town-haU. The slopes of the hiUs 
are studded with rich villas embowered in the luxuriant 
vegetation to be found in all the sheltered corners of 
the Italian lakes. Rhododendrons and azaleas of 



14 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

unusual vigour must show as magnificent bouquets 
of bloom in the spring. Ivory-petalled blossoms still 
linger among the polished leaves of the magnolias. 
In spite of a three months' drought, the trees are green ; 
the oleander especially, that lover of sultry summers, 
displays its sumptuous blossoms. The oleafragrans begins 
to perfume the gardens. By the roadside, fig-trees 
send forth their pungent odour ; between their broad 
leaves we catch sight of the glistening waters and of 
the little island of San Giulio, smiling and quivering 
in the brilliant light. 

A boat will take us across to it in a few minutes. 
The glamour increases as we approach. Terraces and 
gardens seem to be hanging in space over the lake, 
in which the belfry and the high walls of the seminary 
are reflected to a great depth. The verdure of the 
foliage that enframes the houses gives an air of gaiety 
to the little island, the centre of a commune comprising 
several villages on the western and southern shores 
of the lake. As it contains the town-hall, the church 
and the burial ground, wedding and funeral processions 
come hither by boat as at Venice. The space is so 
restricted that buildings rise one above the other, 
and not an inch of ground is wasted. A single narrow 
street, or rather path between walls runs round the 
island. The general effect is highly picturesque. If 
Orta be doomed to disfigurement some day, here, 
I hope, is a comer which will perforce remain unchanged 
for a long time. 

The basilica of San Giulio is an interesting church, 
founded, according to local tradition, in the fourth 
century. Some parts of it indeed — columns, capitals, 
bas-reUefs and frescoes — are very old. The most 
remarkable feature is a Romanesque pulpit of black 
marble, on which are carved the attributes of the 




6 

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H 
O 

H-5 



GAUDENZIO FERRARI 16 

Four Evangelists and two curious panels representing 
Christianity and Paganism, under the respective symbols 
of a grifi&n and a crocodile, alternately triumphing 
the one over the other. If this interpretation given 
me by the custodian be correct, the sculptor was an 
artist with a prudent eye to the future. There are 
numerous frescoes on piUars and vaults. The best, 
by Gaudenzio Ferrari, entirely cover one of the chapels. 
On the end wall : The Virgin surrounded by Saints 
and The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen ; on the ceiling, 
the Four Evangelists ; in the vault, four Prophets ; 
on the pillars of one side, Saint Michael and Saint 
Apollonia, and on the other, Saint Julius and one of his 
Companions. The figures, as Burckhardt has already 
said, are finely executed. But it is to be regretted that 
they were superposed on earlier works, traces of which 
are still to be seen. Indeed in certain places we see 
remnants of primitive decorations over which two 
subsequent paintings have been laid. It is very desirable 
that an attempt should be made to bring these old 
Gothic and Romanesque decorations once more to light, 
and to transfer Ferrari's works, which have suffered 
greatly from the ravages of time, and the folly of 
visitors who have scribbled their names upon them. 
We may console ourselves with the thought that this 
is not a vandalism peculiar to our own times ; the 
custodian showed me with pride inscriptions of 1536 
and 1541, that is to say, almost contemporary with 
the work itself. He then wished to take me into the 
crypt where the body of Saint Julius rests, and into 
the sacristy to see the bone of a monstrous serpent : 
for there is a legend that the island was long uninhabit- 
able owing to the reptiles which swarmed in it. How- 
ever, I took advantage of a moment when he went 
forward to meet some fresh visitors to steal away 



16 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

from him. Outside there was a radiant blaze of 
sunshine. Not often do we see a day so pure and so 
luminous. Hills and villages were reflected with the 
utmost precision on the unruffled surface of the lake. 
The water is a smooth green suggesting molten emeralds, 
and recalling Dante's beautiful simile : fresco smeraldo 
allorache si jiacca} The garden scents were wafted 
in warm gusts of sudden sweetness, sometimes so 
intense that the boat seemed to be passing through a 
perfumed cloud. 

But day was beginning to fade, and I hoped before 
evening to climb the wooded hillside which forms a 
headland on the lake, and culminates in a Sacro Monte, 
of which there are so many in this region. Its twenty 
chapels, in which painted terra-cotta groups set forth 
the life of Saint Francis of Assist are not very remarkable ; 
but their surroundings are exquisite. They stand in 
a sort of park which crowns the summit ; at each turn 
in the walks there are views of different parts of the 
lake. The traveller instinctively recalls the paths 
of the Villa Serbelloni which overhang the three arms 
of Lake Lario in turn ; but here the effect is more 
austere, because there are so many religious symbols 
and so few flowers. The very trees seem to take on 
a certain solemnity. Huge pines with trunks straight 
and smooth as columns rise in the soft twilight air, 
a fraternal race, vibrating to the same breezes and 
quivering with the same tremors. The little white 
chapels seem to be leaning against the sturdy pillars 
of their cathedral. A noble quietude reigns on this 
summit whence the eye surveys the whole panorama. 
The villages that nestle at the foot of the slopes are 
already blurred by the blue dust of twilight. The 
lake sinks into the bottom of the dark cup of mountains 
* Green as an emerald freshly broken. 



LUINI AT SARONNO 17 

which encircle it with their harmonious lines. On 
the further shore, above Pella, which slumbers in its 
woods of chestnut and walnut, rises the utmost peak 
of Mount Rosa. 

Together with the falling darkness, I descend towards 
Orta, to the alhergo whose embowered terrace dominates 
the town. Gradually silky veils are drawn across the 
sky. A fine mist rises from the overheated earth, 
softens all contours, and wraps things in a supple 
mantle of velvet. The hills seem at once to advance and to 
recede. The twinkle of stars animates the glistening 
waters, and a moon in its first quarter throws a thin 
track of fire across them. Here and there a light quivers 
on the quay of Orta. The dim trees slumber motionless 
in the languid air. 



CHAPTER II 

SARONNO 

I HAD also long wished to visit Saronno, for here 
one really learns to know Luini, the good Luini, whose 
gentle, rhythmic name so aptly evokes the poetry of 
the lakes on whose shores he was born and lived and 
died. Nowhere else has he left so many frescoes ; 
and he is above all a frescante. He who judges Luini 
only by his easel pictures knows not the true genius 
of the artist, who was unable to pour out his tender, 
ardent, spontaneous soul within their narrow limits. 

It is true that at Milan one can get an idea of his 
art from the works in San Maurizio, in the Brera, where 

C 



18 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

there are numerous fragments, notably the admirable 
Entombment of Saint Catherine, and in S. Maria della 
Passione, the church, whose rococo faQade bears the 
haK obliterated inscription immortalised by Maurice 
Barres : Amori et dolori sacrum } We gain a deeper 
insight into it at Lugano, in the modest church of S. 
Maria degli Angeli, where he painted his largest com- 
position on the-^wall of the rood-screen. The many 
episodes of the Passion are represented in full, and more 
than five hundred persons figure in the various scenes. 
The general effect is a little cold, and we are conscious 
of the difficulty the artist must have had in co-ordinating 
a composition so complex and dramatic ; but there 
are exquisite details, and Luini rarely conceived more 
touching figures than the pathetic Saint John making 
his promise to the dying Saviour, or the Magdalen 
kneeling at the foot of the Cross and smiHng in ecstasy 
through her golden hair. 

The space to be covered at Saronno was even greater ; 
but it was divided up into a series of panels and the 
painter was able to distribute his work as he pleased. 
Untrammelled by a time limit, or, it would seem, by 
any pre-determined programme, Luini was governed 
by no rule but that of his own imagination. He put 
his whole self into the work, with all his qualities and 
all his defects. 

To get to Saronno, one has to cross a corner of the 
Lombard plain, on those dusty roads which soon become 
monotonous, because they run for the most part through 
two green hedges. This fertile country would be a 
beautiful sight ... if one could see it, as said Abbe 
Coyer, who sighed for the highways of France, where the 
trees which adorn and shade them do not obscure the 
prospect. Still, there are delightful corners, and idyllic 
^ A shrine for love and pain. 



FRESCOES AT SARONNO 19 

landscapes, notably where the thick ribbon of vine- 
branches winds on either side of the road, hanging 
from tree to tree. These vines clinging to elms have 
inspired poets throughout the ages ; Ovid invoked 
them in one of the pieces in his Amores to express his 
fondness and his regrets in the absence of Corinna : 

Ulmus amat vitem, vitis non deserit ulmum 
Separor a domiiia cur ego saepe mea ? ^ 

On this September morning when summer is in its 
death-throes, a delicate light plays in the atmosphere 
and floats in gentle waves over the autumnal landscape. 
The magnificent plane-trees, a double avenue of which 
leads from the town of Saronno to the church, are 
bathed in a golden light. The traveller treads on a 
thick carpet of dead leaves ; there is something melan- 
choly and bitter in their sUghtly acrid scent. 

And here we have one of those delectable sanctuaries 
of art, in which we discover the soul of an artist under 
an insignificant or mediocre exterior. There have been 
hardly any changes here for four centuries ; cosmo- 
politan snobbery has not yet found its way here ; 
and the student may spend long hours undisturbed 
by tourists or guides. 

The whole of the end of the church was decorated 
by Luini. First, there are two figures of saints : 
S. Eoch and S. Sebastian ; in the passage leading to 
the choir : The Marriage of the Virgin and Jesus among 
the Doctors ; in the choir itseK : The Adoration of the 
Magi and The Presentation in the Temple ; on the 
pendentives and the upper walls : The Sibyls, The 
Evangelists and The Fathers of the Church ; in a little 
sacristy behind the choir : S. Catherine and S, Apollonia 
and on pieces of canted wall, two angels bearing a cup 

1 The elm loves the vine and the vine will not leave the elm. 
Why should I be so often parted from my mistress ? 

c 2 



20 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

and a chalice ; finally, in a passage in the cloisters : 
The Nativity. 

Contemplating Luini's works, I am nearly always 
conscious of three successive impressions. First, a 
sense of delight which the general harmony of tints 
and colours gives to the eye. As I entered the choir, 
the word delicious sprang to my lips. Then, as I looked 
more carefully, disillusionment began : I thought 
the groups confused, the faces often inexpressive, 
the perspective mostly false. The landscapes which 
had charmed me at the first glance are badly con- 
structed, and sometimes a little ridiculous : in the 
Presentation in the Temple the mound on which stands 
the church of Saronno shaded by a sickly palm-tree, 
is really childish in composition ; in the Adoration 
of the Magi, the string of animals loaded with 
odd little valises attests a puerility bordering on 
the grotesque. The heads are often commonplace 
and the attitudes rigid ; even the figure of Mary in the 
Adoration of the Magi and the Marriage of the Virgin 
is insignificant and wholly without -character. But 
when, after examining the works in detail, I stand 
back and try to sum up a general impression, Luini 
triumphs once more. There are so many charming 
tones so cunningly graduated, so much sweetness and 
suavity everywhere, that I can no longer criticise. 
I am conquered, as I am by a certain kind of music 
the defects and mediocrity of which I recognise, but 
which captivates me by the very first bar when I hear 
it. I no longer notice the faults which shocked 
me ; my eye lingers only on the exquisite things 
which liuini has lavished here as elsewhere. In the 
Adoration of the Magi, for instance, I forget the poor 
arrangement of the groups in my admiration for a beau- 
tiful page with a Leonardesque head, and for the little 



LEONARDO'S INFLUENCE 21 

angels of the vault. It was in isolated figures such as 
these that Luini always excelled. And I would will- 
ingly give the great frescoes of the choir for the 
S. Catherine or the Angels of the sacristy. 

Nowhere are the soul of the painter, his sweet and 
tender philosophy, his smiling faith, more clearly 
manifested than here. It seems as if in this sanctuary 
somewhat remote from the world he had escaped more 
than was his wont from the yoke of Leonardo, and 
had allowed his own heart to speak. We divine what 
Luini might have become if he had been left to himself ; 
and think that had Leonardo never come to Milan, 
its school might have risen to the same heights as the 
other Italian schools, and might have found in Luini 
a master equal to Titian, Correggio or Raphael. But 
the great Florentine had only to appear and he tri- 
umphed. All original inspiration was checked. The 
qualities of health, grace and vigour characteristic of 
the old Lombard masters vanished as by magic before 
a glory which at once became a tyranny. Artists 
thought only of imitating the inimitable ; thenceforth 
they never painted a face without giving it the smile 
and the enigmatic eyes of La Gioconda. This influence 
is so strong in Luini 's pictures, that several of them 
were long attributed to Da Vinci. 

In his frescoes, on the other hand, Luini contrived 
to preserve his independence to a much greater degree. 
Nothing, indeed, differs more essentially from the slowly 
conceived and minutely retouched work of the subtle 
Leonardo than the swift, spontaneous art of fresco, 
where the painter has to work on the fresh plaster 
which allows neither of hesitation nor corrections. 
The one master strove to suggest on his canvas the 
most mysterious sentiments of the soul, and to express 
all the complicated learning of his brain ; the other 



22 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

covered the walls of churches after the manner of a 
simple and faithful craftsman who loved his art and 
lived for it alone. Luini was no intellectual ; he 
produced his works as the beautiful trees of his country 
yield their luscious fruits. This is more especially 
evident in his youthful works, v/hen he had as yet 
experienced no foreign influence, as, for instance, in 
that Bath of the Nymphs, the free and very modern 
handling of which sometimes recalls Puvis de Chavannes 
and Renoir. There is an innocent charm about these 
maidens emerging from the bath or disrobing to enter 
it. Their muscular limbs, their supple, velvety skin, 
everything about them proclaim the joy of life under 
happy skies. At a time when war and pestilence 
were ravaging the province, he contrived to live at 
Milan in a kind of dream, so obscurely that we 
know little of his biography beyond what may be 
gleaned from the dates on his canvases and frescoes. 
Either from necessity, as tradition has it, or perhaps 
simply from a love of quietude, he preferred 
a life in the calm retreat of monasteries, where, no 
doubt for sums paltry but sufficient to free him from 
material cares, he could give himself up entirely to 
his beloved calling, la mirdbile e clarissima arte di 
pittura?- He loved more especially the sanctuary of 
Saronno, where he seems to have made two long 
sojourns. Nowhere, at any rate, even before the vast 
fresco of the rood-screen at Lugano, have I felt so 
near to him as here. As long ago as October 4, 1816, 
Stendhal came to see these " touching " frescoes, which 
he declares he " admired so greatly." How could he 
have said on another occasion, in reference to Lombard 
beauty, that " no great painter has immortalised it 
by his pictures, as Correggio immortalised the beauty 
^ " The admirable and lucid art of painting." 



THE LOMBARD TYPE 23 

of Romagna and Andrea del Sarto that of Florence " ? 
I think, on the contrary, that Luini has perfectly ex- 
pressed the beauty described by Manzoni : molle a 
un tratto e maestosa che hrilla net sangue lomhardoj^ 
and especially in those women with opulent forms, 
languorous eyes, quivering nostrils and fresh cheeks 
like ripe fruits. 

When he spoke thus Stendhal seems to have for- 
gotten Leonardo da Vinci, who, coming from the suave 
but somewhat austere Tuscany, felt the seduction of 
Lombardy intensely, and fixed the sensual grace of 
her youths on his canvases. True, he added to this 
the subtle idealism and the love of eloquence which are 
the essence of Florentine art. Each artist interprets 
reality through his personal vision. A truism often 
repeated and expressed by Goethe in a form which 
loses in translation : " Reality is the fertilising soil 
in which flourishes the marvellous plant of art, whose 
roots must strike down into the real, but whose stem 
must blossom in the ideal." The stem flowers at a 
greater or a lesser height, according to temperament. 
Luini's blossoms are within reach of our hands ; we 
can easily gather them and inhale their perfumes. 



CHAPTER III 

NOVABA 

Why had I hitherto felt distrustful of Novara % 
There are towns, just as there are persons, whom we 

1 " At once soft and majestic, which shines in the Lombard 
race." 



24 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

instinctively avoid for years, and finally regret having 
left unknown so long, when chance brings us acquainted 
with them. I imagined No vara as a dreary, common- 
place town of the Piedmontese plain, far from mountains 
and rivers, crowned by a hideous cathedral, and in- 
teresting chiefly as possessing an excellent buffet with 
famous cellars in a great railway station always crowded 
with trains, at the junction of numerous lines. 

This year, being forced by my itinerary to spend 
several hours there, I determined to explore it hastily. 
And now I have spent two most agreeable days there, 
lodged in an old hotel into one room of which one 
might easily put a whole Parisian flat, and where the 
cooking and the wines were first-rate. The town is 
cheerful and well built ; and as the walks are dehghtful, 
I was consoled for the scarcity of works of art. 

There are, it is true, an ancient Baptistery and a 
Romanesque church ; unfortunately, there is scarcely 
anything left of the primitive basilica, which has 
gradually been transformed into a rich modern building, 
with an atrium of Corinthian columns in Simplon 
granite. There is also the church of San Gaudenzio 
with the famous belfry by Antonelli of which the 
Novarese are so proud — -a structure almost as ugly 
as the building by the same architect at Turin. I 
might further have found in the churches and pubHc 
galleries some pictures by Ferrari ; but it would have 
been futile to seek out second-rate examples of the 
master when on my way to Varallo. I preferred to 
loiter in the little streets and above all, to take a walk 
round the town. 

Among the numerous Italian cities which have trans- 
formed their ancient fortifications into shady avenues, 
not one has solved the problem more successfully 
Here we have not merely a circular boulevard planted 



EVENING AT NOVARA 25 

with chestnut trees which are burnt up by the summer 
heat, and present a lamentable appearance in September, 
but a superb girdle of gardens and lawns with splendid 
trees. About the ivy-covered red walls of the ruined 
castle one may wander as in the alleys of an ancient 
park. North and west, the view extends as far as the 
line of the great Alps that spread out fan-wise around 
the Lombard plain ; the panorama is almost the same 
as that we see from the roof of Milan Cathedral. Here, 
indeed, the majestic mass of Mount Rosa is even more 
sharply defined ; when the atmosphere has been cleared 
by a storm, its peaks stand out against the azure with 
the precision of a piece of goldsmith's work. Some- 
times in the warm hours of the day when the foremost 
mountains are bathed in mist, it emerges alone, like some 
dream summit set in a mysterious ocean ; and in the 
evening, when the blue shadow is creeping over the 
plain, it flames fantastically, a fiery flower in the twilight. 
The fall of day, seen from these ramparts of Novara, 
is full of serenity. And the evenings are delicious 
in these nocturnal gardens propitious to intertwined 
shadows, at moments when the desire latent in every 
soul for the help of another soul to still the anguish 
of solitude before the mystery of things awakens. 
Round the old trees half stript of their leaves and 
the withered grasses hovers the odour of autumn, the 
very melancholy of which attunes the soul to love. 



26 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER IV . 

VAUALLO 

Nothing could be more delightful than the journey 
from No vara to Varallo. The traveller passes first 
through the deep undulations of the rice fields, the close, 
heavy ears of which are lying in swathes, like a stormy 
sea suddenly congealed. A gentle light silvers the 
morning landscape and plays through the fine mist so 
characteristic both of Lower Piedmont and the Lom- 
bard plain, where, as Michelet says : " fever and dream 
seem to hover." The mountains on the horizon are 
dimly seen ; the snowy outline of the Alps is barely 
distinguishable . 

Towards Romagnano the hills begin suddenly, and 
very soon increase in height. The route rejoins the 
Sesia, and follows its course as far as Varallo. This 
valley, one of the loveliest of those which descend 
from the chain of Monte Rosa, is both fertile and 
industrial. Fruit trees, lusty vines heavily garlanded, 
and forests of chestnut trees cover the country with 
verdure. There are few isolated farms, but many 
big market-towns, prosperous and inviting of aspect 
after the Italian fashion. Tacitus in his Germania 
noted that the inhabitants of the further slopes of the 
Alps space out their houses, whereas the Latins group 
them together as much as possible to form villages, 
always with an eye to regularity and general effect. 
The Latin ideal has ever been urban life, the city. 
All the amiable and social instinct of the race is mani- 
fested in this grouping, which affords greater facility 
of existence and more opportunity for gaiety. The 
inhabitants we encounter on the road or in the villages 



ASPECT OF VARALLO 27 

are healthy, well-to-do, and full of the joy of life. The 
peasant women wear curious costumes of brilliant 
colours ; they smile as they pass or salute us with a 
gracious gesture. One feels that all these folks love 
the sun and that a few drops of rain or a little fog would 
suffice to drive them indoors. The Italians might 
adopt the device I have read on certain sun-dials : 
Sine sole silio} 

After leaving Borgosesia the mountains close in ; 
the valley becomes more picturesque. And soon 
Varallo appears, superbly placed. Its cheerful roofs are 
clustered together at the bottom of the gorge, dominated 
by verdant hills set against lofty mountains. The 
appearance of the town is very individual. Although 
it is quite close to Monte Rosa, it is unlike the usual 
small Alpine town. It boasts large, well-built houses, 
important shops, open-air markets well stocked with 
flowers and fruit. There are also comfortable modern 
hotels, but none of these can rival the ancient hostelry 
which had been recommended to me, a house which 
still deserves its centenarian fame. Here the traveller 
takes his meals on a terrace with old world decorations 
shaded by Virginian creeper, and overhanging the 
Sesia, just at its point of junction with the Mastallone 
torrent, whose famous trout figure on every bill of fare. 
But, indeed, everything here is delicious : fish, part- 
ridges, peaches, grapes as fragrant as those of my 
native place, that valley of the Drome dear to the 
epicure, where Dauphiny and Provence meet to offer 
the rich produce of their soil. Once again I note many 
affinities between my own land and the Alpine regions 
situated at the same altitudes of from twelve to twenty- 
four hundred feet. Last year these impressed me in 
Cadore, whence Titian sent to his beloved Aretino 
^ Without sun I am silent. 



28 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

game and fruit which were the pride of the daintiest 
table in Venice. 

Varallo's chief title to fame lies in its Sacro Monte, 
which is the most important and the most curious of 
all the sanctuaries in the distri<jt. It rises above the 
town, on the summit of a wooded hill where it forms a 
veritable city. Seen from the valley on approaching 
Varallo, it recalls those little towns of Tuscany and 
Umbria whose white walls crown the olive-clad hill- 
sides. The monk who instituted the pilgrimage to the 
sanctuary, at the close of the fifteenth century, dreamed 
of making it the New Jerusalem, and the mountain 
on which it stands was to represent Golgotha to the 
eyes of the faithful. The ascent takes half an hour 
by a somewhat rugged road full of sharp pebbles, but 
shaded by the most venerable chestnut trees in existence. 
Nothing could be more beautiful than these groves 
of chestnuts, hundreds of years old, which adorn the 
Piedmontese Alps. The air and the light circulate 
freely under their broad leaves ; between their trunks, 
so robust that nothing can grow near them, there is 
no brushwood, none of those damp spots encumbered 
by a parasitic vegetation, where one divines a crawHng 
world of reptiles and insects ; the shadow is clear and 
translucent, and only the sun pierces it with golden 
rays through the branches. 

From the summit the view extends over the whole 
of Valsesia and the heights that dominate it. I must 
confess that I preferred to enjoy this panorama rather 
than to examine each of the forty-five chapels, where 
the various episodes of the life of Christ are reproduced 
in pitiable fashion by means of terra-cotta groups 
akin to wax-work figures, and frescoes. I regret that 
Gaudenzio Ferrari should have associated himself, 
by modelling a few figures and painting a few frescoes, 



GAUDENZIOTERRARI 29 

with these works, precursors — ^like those of Mazzoni 
and Begarelli at Modena — of the religious objects sold 
in the shops around Saint Sulpice. My idea in coming 
to Varallo, indeed, was to become better acquainted 
with the most famous of its sons, the excellent painter 
Gaudenzio Ferrari, who was born at Valduggia near 
by, and lived at Varallo the greater part of his life. 
Here, again, we have one of those artists who would 
be almost illustrious in any other country. But Italy 
is so rich that she has neglected him somewhat. His 
fame has scarcely spread beyond the region where, 
it is true, the majority of his works are still to be found. 
And this indeed may be one of the reasons for this 
neglect, for as M. Teodor de Wyzewa has observed, 
" the atmosphere of the Lakes fills the soul with a 
kind of voluptuous torpor, which makes it dread the 
shock of a strong artistic emotion." 

A good idea of Ferrari's talent will already have 
been formed by those who have seen his pictures at 
Novara, Cannobio and Como, his frescoes at Vercelli 
and the Island of Orta, and above all,, the splendid 
cupola of Saronno, which I admired the other day, 
and which Andre Michel, in his History of Painting, 
ranks among the great achievements of Italian art, 
comparing it to Correggio's masterpiece at Parma. 
But one can only learn to know him thoroughly at 
Varallo, in the little church of S. Maria delle Grazie, 
at the foot of the Sacred Mount. Here his heart still 
beats, in that sunny square where his house has been 
preserved and where his fellow- citizens erected a statue 
to him, wishing, as the inscription upon it tells us, to 
honour him who immortalised himself delV arte del 
dipingere e del plasticare.^ 

Though this formula is comprehensible on the road 
^ '* In the arts of painting and modelling." 



30 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

to the Sacro Monte — seeing that the artist worked on a 
few of the statues in the chapel — ^it is on the whole 
over-ambitious. Ferrari can only claim to rank among 
the painters, but his place is a very honourable one ; 
and without going so far as Lomazzo, who reckons 
him among the seven great masters of the period, it 
is but just to pay homage to his merits. 

Before entering S. Maria delle Grazie, I wished to 
see one of his pictures which still adorns the altar of 
the parish church, built in the heart of the town on a 
rock to which one climbs by a very picturesque stair- 
case. Burckhardt incorrectly gives his readers to 
understand that there are two churches, each possessing 
a Marriage of Saint Catherine ; he makes a distinction 
between the Collegiata and San Gaudenzio, which are, 
in fact, the same building. The altar-piece, in six 
compartments, is an exquisitely harmonious work. 
The Christ is very beautiful ; rarely has that lifeless 
body, which is not a corpse, since it is to rise again, 
been more perfectly rendered. The central compart- 
ment represents the Marriage of S. Catherine, and is 
no less remarkable in composition and colour. 

But, like Luini, Gaudenzio was pre-eminently a 
fresco-painter, and his masterpiece is the great decora- 
tion on the rood-screen. In the chapel on the left, 
under this rood-screen, the Presentation in the Temple 
and the Jesus among the Doctors are also noticeable ; 
but the importance of the large fresco makes it allow- 
able to pass them over. The surface is divided into 
twenty-one panels illustrating the life of Christ. The 
general effect is by no means monotonous ; each of the 
sacred episodes shows a wonderful variety of execution. 
When we examine them closely, we are almost inclined 
to think Ferrari superior to Luini, save in grace and 
design. He has greater vigour and movement. There 



FERRARI'S CRITICS 31 

were passages that made me think of Signorelli, and 
details of daring naturalism ; I will not go so far as 
Corrado Ricci, and say " modernism." The torn and 
dirty garments of the flagellants, the attitudes of the 
Apostles who gaze at Jesus as He washes the feet of one 
of them, the effects of light in the scene of the arrest, 
among other things, bear witness to his researches and 
his constant regard for truth. He exaggerates some- 
times. Thus in the panel of the Crucifixion, there are 
many futile and even ridiculous details ; the devil 
who is tormenting the impenitent thief and the little 
jumping dog in the foreground detract from the 
emotional effect. We see the artist swayed by the 
various influences brought to bear upon him, influences 
among which M. Teodor de Wyzewa, following Miss 
Ethel Halsey, has been at pains to discriminate. 
According to these critics, the painter at first remained 
faithful to his Lombard origin ; they then note in his 
work a new manner so distinctly German that they 
believe Ferrari must have worked for some months 
on the banks of the Rhine. I must confess that I could 
not trace this influence so clearly in the San Gaudenzio 
picture described above, which belongs to this second 
period. The artist then went to Parma, and fell under 
the enchantment of Correggio ; the angels of the Flight 
into Egypt in Como Cathedral, and the warm colour 
of the admirable Ascent to Calvary at Cannobio, leave 
no room for doubt on this head. Finally, at the close 
of his career, Ferrari, assimilating all these influences 
in his individual genius, produced the masterpieces 
at Vercelli and Saronno. 

These divisions are always a little arbitrary. I think, 
moreover — and to me this is the secret of Ferrari's 
charm — that he ever remained a Lombard more 
or less. Having spent nearly all his life in the mountains 



32 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of Varallo and on the sliox;es of the lakes, he preserved 
the flavour of his birth-place and his race. He was the 
last to resist the domination of Leonardo. When 
he died in 1546, we may say that Lombard painting 
had had its day. 



CHAPTER V 

VARESB 

It was not on the shores of Lake Varese, as a some- 
what ambiguous phrase might lead us to suppose, that 
Taine longed for a country house ; he never ever 
approached its banks, and was content to view it fron 
the road leading to Laveno. It was Lake MaggioK 
which so fired him that he wished to live by it; ht 
preferred it to Como, the voluptuous beauty of which 
did not appeal to him. But I should have understood 
it had his choice fallen on the town of Varese, for it 
is charming, and its environs are among the most 
delightful spots in Lombardy. It is gay, prosperous and 
animated, sometimes even over-crowded on the days 
of its famous markets and horse-races ; the Milanese 
have made it one of their favourite residential quarters 
and have built handsome villas there. As it is little 
known to tourists, the traveller may linger there at 
his ease between its festival periods, and enjoy the 
dignified calm of its public gardens, which are among 
the finest in Northern Italy. They are the park of 
the ancient Corte which Duke Francis III of Modena 
built in the eighteenth century. Planted in the old 



GARDENS AT VARESE 33 

Italian style, they have an air of noble severity. Secular 
hornbeams border the spacious lawns. I remember see- 
ing them long ago in the spring, when camellias, chestnut 
trees, lilacs and Australian magnolias with their satiny 
white blossoms filled them with their youthful sweetness. 
Now the scents of autumn, less strong but more subtle, 
spread a fever through the groves. A knoll studded 
with firs and parasol pines in the background adds 
much to the character and majesty of this garden. 
From the terrace the view extends over the whole of 
Lake Varese and as far as the chain of Western Alps 
dominated by Monte Rosa. Turning about, we see 
above the roofs of the town, the Madonna del Monte, 
and beyond, the Campo dei Fiori, which rises 3,000 
feet above the plain, an incomparable belvedere to 
which, sad to say, a funicular, opened within the last 
few days, gives access. A rack and pinion railway 
had already dishonoured the famous pilgrim's way 
of the Madonna, which in former days was climbed 
on foot or in bullock carts, a rough Calvary with inter- 
minable windings. The joy of the gradual ascent, 
and the discovery at every turning of a wider field 
of vision, was infinitely greater under the old con- 
ditions. The panorama from the top is magnificent. 
The view extends over the whole of Lombardy, as far 
as Milan, dimly divined on the horizon. We distin- 
guish six lakes : to the left, Como ; in front, Varese ; 
to the right, the little lakes of Biandronno, Monate 
and Comabbio ; finally, a long way behind them, two 
fragments of Maggiore. These no doubt, made up 
the '* seven " lakes counted by Stendhal, when he 
exclaimed : " Magnificent sight ! One may travel 
through all France and Germany without receiving 
such impressions." It is true that there are few pros- 
pects so superb, especially towards evening, when the 

D 



34 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

sheets of water gleam in the setting sun Hke golden 
reliquaries. Yet in spite of this cry of admiration, 
Beyle was very melancholy on that June day of 1817, 
so melancholy that he scarcely looked at the women 
who accompanied him in his walk, two of whom, at 
least, he declares, were very beautiful. '* As I have 
not time to be in love with any one of them, I am in 
love with Italy. I cannot overcome my grief at leaving 
this land." No doubt he was sincere ; but a memory 
mingled with this regret which gave it a taste of bitter- 
ness. He recalled another ascent six years before 
on an October morning, " when the sun rose wreathed 
in mists and the lower slopes looked like islands in the 
midst of a sea of white clouds." How gaily he had 
mounted then ! He was going to meet Angelina 
Pietragrua, whom he had known in his youth, whom 
he had lately seen again, even more beautiful than 
he had imagined her during the years of separation, and 
who had at last given herseK to him. But the Madonna 
del Monte had not been kind to the lovers. Although 
the brother of the parish priest had handed him the 
benedetta chiave (blessed key), the key of the door which 
gave access from his lodging to the peristyle of the 
church, he had failed to encounter the fair Milanese. 
Either to fan the flame of his love, or because her 
husband's jealousy had really been aroused, she managed 
to evade him. On the terrace whence I gaze on the 
lovely panorama, Beyle meditated on love, and waited 
vainly for her whom later he stigmatised as " a jade." 
A hundred years later almost to the day, I am conscious 
of the touching grace this memory adds to the land- 
scape, this landscape which he looked at with unseeing 
eyes. 



CHAPTER VI 

COMO 

How shall I be able to leave Lombardy and re -cross 
the Alps without stopping on the shore of Lario, where 
I have so often paced in idle meditation that I seem to 
have lived there for years ? But this time, instead 
of stajdng at Bellagio or Cadenabbia I mean to remain 
at Como itself, and taste the charm of this town, which 
at the present day is rather the city of Volta than that 
of Pietro da Bregia, the architect of the Cathedral, 
but which still has artistic joys in store for the pilgrim. 

I remember that, in company with Maurice Banes, 
I once rallied Taine for having devoted more pages to 
Como Cathedral than to the shores of the Lake itself. 
And even now I am not prepared to go back upon what 
I said altogether, for Taine 's chapter still amuses me. 
The writer exults when he quits Milan and its museums : 
" After three months spent among pictures and statues, 
I feel like a man who has been dining out every night 
for three months ; give me bread and not pine-apple. 
The traveller gets into the train light of heart, knowing 
that when he arrives he will find real water, trees, 
and mountains, that the landscape will be more than 
three feet long and will not be enclosed in four gold 
bands." Then, on the following days, after having 
gone round the lake without leaving his boat, he devotes 
a short page to the marvels he has beheld, marvels he 
seemed to have longed for so fervently ; and imable 
to resist the temptation of going to visit the Cathedral, 
he writes a whole chapter in which he discourses at 
length on the happy mingling of Italian and Gothic 
in the works of the Renaissance. 

35 D 2 



36 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Now that I have been able to examine the cathedral 
at leisure, I can understand Taine's enthusiasm. Even 
at the close of a journey in Italy, it is able to detain 
and delight the traveller in quest of beauty. The 
fa9ade (parallel with the charming Broletto of tri- 
coloured marble, a third of which had to be lopped 
off to allow space for the Cathedral front) is highly 
original with its three divisions marked by vertical 
lines of superposed statues. The middle stage is more 
especially elaborate and decorative. The central porch, 
surmounted by five lofty figures and a rose window 
encircled by niches, is flanked right and left by graceful, 
slender windows beneath which are the famous seated 
statues of the two Pliny s. I notice that there is a great 
wealth of statues throughout ; even the window-frames 
are adorned with them ; there are perhaps a hundred 
on this fa9ade, which by reason of its wide, flat spaces, 
looks almost bare at a flrst glance. The details of the 
architecture are now Gothic, now Renaissance ; there 
could hardly be a better demonstration in marble 
of the struggle between the tendencies which divided 
the fifteenth century. These transition works have, 
moreover, a vigour and simplicity which reveal a 
robust and youthful art. No doubt, as Taine remarks, 
a certain artlessness, an over-literal imitation of forms, 
indicate a spirit which has not yet attained its full 
freedom of flight ; exaggerated attitudes, superabimdant 
locks, betray the excesses and irregularities of inven- 
tive genius ; but this desire to render and express 
life has in its very clumsiness more charm than much 
cold and learned perfection. Moreover, as I have 
already pointed out more than once, Lombard sculpture 
is above all ornamental, and its object is to contribute 
to the general effect ; Lombard artists are decorators 
rather than sculptors. This is still more evident in 



COMO CATHEDRAL 37 

the two lateral doors of the cathedral. The south 
porch is ascribed to Bramante, and although the 
attribution has been contested, it seems to me to bear 
the mark of his hand : the breadth of the design, the 
sobriety of the details, the firmness of the lines, the 
nobility of the effect are at least worthy of that great 
artist. The other door, generally known as the Porta 
della Rana, because of a frog carved on one of the pillars, 
is by the brothers Rodari. We divine that the two 
Lombard artists aspired to improve upon their model ,* 
they succeeded only in making their work richer and 
more elaborate, too rich and too elaborate. Why 
those figures and that niche in its turn surmounted by 
statues, on the entablature ? Why those huge carved 
columns loaded with ornaments like the supports of 
an altar ? I recognise here the minds and hands of 
the artisans who worked on the Cathedral of Milan 
and the Certosa of Pa via. 

But let us not imitate Taine ; let us give these last 
hours to the lake. At the end of last March, returning 
from Toledo and the harsh plateaux of Castille, I ex- 
perienced such physical delight in arriving on these 
shores that they had never seemed so fair to me before. 
I declared that their seduction was more enthralling 
at that early season than in' the autumn. This is only 
true from a certain point of view : the joy of the eye 
is more perfect in the spring. Through the atmosphere, 
not as yet tarnished by the dust of summer, the slightest 
details of the soil appear. The hills, which enclose 
the shores so harmoniously without imprisoning them, 
take on more delicate tints ; their slender curves and 
supple undulations become more definite ; the leafless 
trees do not mask them under the uniform tone of 
their foliage. The snow which still crowns the mountain- 
tops, relieves their crests against the blue, and at the 



38 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

same time forms a most vivid contrast to the trees and 
flowers. 

But the deep poetry of this lake, and its unrivalled 
fascination, are only fully revealed in autumn when 
the languors and perfumes of the dying summer float 
about us in a perpetual incense. In the balmy alleys 
of its gardens one recalls those groves of Tasso, where, 
under the soft persuasion of flower scents, a hero's 
hate gave way to love. If other lakes are too chill 
and too unsympathetic, this one is perhaps too sub- 
missive to our desires and too indulgent to our sensuality. 
True lovers sometimes suffer here from so much un- 
necessary complicity, and so much joy that owes 
nothing to their own ardour. 

I decided to return on foot to Cernobbio to revisit 
the Villa d'Este, and go over the ground I had travelled 
the first time I came to Como. What changes twelve 
years have wrought ! Innumerable houses have risen 
along the road, which at present seems like the street 
of a single town extending right along the bank. 
Progress is always hostile to Nature, and the foe of 
the picturesque. Very soon there will be no walks 
unenclosed by walls. And as the high road will be 
more and more encumbered by tramways and motor- 
cars, we shall have to give up this once delicious walk. 
Ah ! happy was the time when these corners were so 
tranquil, when one met only peaceful pilgrims and 
fine carriages, when, even on the outskirts of private 
properties, trees and flowers leant so amiably from 
terraces and through gateways that one seemed to be 
wandering through a park. How shamefaced and 
wretched the roadside verdure looks now under its 
shroud of dust ! Alas ! too lovely shores ! your beauty 
will perish of its own glory like that laurel of the Borro- 
mean islands on which, tradition tells us, Bonaparte 



PLINY'S VILLAS 39 

carved the word Victcyry on the eve of Marengo, and 
which has succumbed to the mutilations inflicted by 
over-zealous admirers. 

To find peace, one must take refuge on the eastern 
side, towards Torno, where the carriage road ends, 
and take the mule track which leads to Pliny's villa. 
Here there is solitude, as in the days of Pliny. The 
historian owned at least three country-houses on the 
shores of the lake. Those he called respectively 
Tragcedia and Comcedia because of their situation, 
one on the height, the other close to the water, " one 
standing on cothurni, the other on humble clogs, " must 
have been in the neighbourhood of Lenno, where the 
shafts of columns and half-buried capitals bear witness 
to the former existence of sumptuous buildings. The 
third stood on the site of the present Villa Pliniana, 
beside the changeful spring which puzzled him so 
much, as we learn from his letter to Licinias Sura, 
where he enumerates all the contemporary explanations 
of the natural phenomenon. The spot is one of the 
wildest in these generally smiling regions ; and we can 
imagine how this mysterious, almost menacing setting 
increased the terror and astonishment of the ancients. 
The lake alone smiles between the black trunks of the 
cypresses and quivers gently in the brightness of the 
dazzling mid-day sun, as Carducci described it : 

Palpito il lago Virgilio, come velo di sposa 
Che s' apre al bacio del promeaso amore.^ 

From this solitary corner, so near Como and yet so 
deserted, to which the echoes of the all too noisy shores 
do not penetrate, I see a little of Virgil and Pliny's 
lake gleaming under the glowing light in the languor 

* Virgil's lake quivers, like the veil of a bride, 
Which opens to the kiss of promised love. 



40 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of autumn, just as all Lario gleamed two thousand 
years ago, under a more youthful sun, in a wilder 
setting. 



CHAPTER VII 

ISEO 

Just as the spell of Venice causes us to neglect the 
cities on the way from Milan to the Adriatic, so the magic 
of the great Italian lakes makes us overlook the delicious 
Lake of Iseo, which is a kind of tiny summary of all 
the rest. It has corners of vegetation as luxuriant as 
that of the Lakes of Como or Garda, scenery wilder than 
that of Lugano, and, like Maggiore, an imposing back- 
ground of mountains with the snowy peaks of the 
Adamello, the Plan di Nive, and the glaciers of Salarno. 
Small as it is, it even boasts an island, the largest lake 
island in Italy. 

On leaving Vicenza, I determined to revisit this 
lake, where something of the French spirit still lingers. 
On its shores, indeed, " the neighbourhood of which,'* 
as she says, *' is fresh and gentle as one of Virgil's 
Eclogues," George Sand wandered with her turbulent 
dreams, and put a little, nay, perhaps a good deal of 
herself into the story of the unhappy loves of young 
Prince Karol of Roswald and the actress, Lucrezia 
Floriani. 

In spite of the flowers and the garden walks all vocal 
with birds among the azaleas in spring-time, it is in 
September that I love best to visit these lakes, the 
very names of which make my heart beat faster on dull 



TAINE AT COMO 41 

days in Paris. Italian lakes and gardens ! Why 
should these simple words move me more than any 
others ? I have never, like some enthusiasts, vowed 
to take up my abode for ever on their perfumed terraces, 
at Bellagio or Pallanza ; but it is delightful to spend 
a week among them, to know that they offer one a 
refuge, a haven of peace or of love. 

Their magic is instantaneous. Scarcely has one seen 
them gleaming in the sun than one is conquered.- 
They seem at once famiUar, and this sudden impression 
given by a lake, a town, a country is never deceptive ; 
it is nearly always definitive. Good or evil, it is rarely 
modified subsequently ; at any rate, it is never com- 
pletely effaced. As between persons who meet for the 
first time, sympathy, indifference or hostility is born 
of the mere encounter. We seem at once to come in 
contact with the soul of this lake, this town, this region, 
a soul compact of many things : of the air one breathes, 
the light which illumines it, the line of the shore or 
of the streets, the faces one encounters, the curve of 
the hills, and a thousand details visible and invisible. 

The lakes of Savoy, of Bavaria and of Switzerland are 
too cold, too sublime, or too austere ; they lack the 
nobility, the perfect proportion, and also the languor 
we find in combination here on this declivity of the 
Alps which looks down on the land of light and beauty. 
Taine, who extolled Lake Como, never really loved 
it. He stayed there but one day. Delighted to think 
he was not going to see any more pictures, but to bathe 
in nature, he embarked in the morning, went round the 
lake without landing anywhere, and returned to the 
town in the afternoon. The next day he devoted to the 
Cathedral, and to a long dissertation on architecture. 
Would it not have been better if he had stopped at 
Bellagio to taste the joy of life in the gardens of the 



42 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Villa Serbelloni ? It is difficult to enjoy a landscape 
when one is chiefly concerned to get a few pages of 
copy out of it. Dumas the elder declared that he 
wrote the three worst articles he had ever produced 
on the shores of these lakes, in the loveliest country 
in the world. And I believe that George Sand came 
to Iseo rather to attune the tumult of her heart to the 
rhythmic murmur of the waters than to work. 

Instead of embarking at once on the steamer for 
Lovere, I preferred to make my way for a mile or two 
on the new road which skirts the eastern shore as far 
as Pisogne. It is a wonderful piece of work, for the 
most part a terrace hewn in the rock, which rivals 
the Ponale road or the famous Axenstrasse of the 
Four Cantons. 

Under the hot noon sunshine the water spreads out 
its harmonious surface like breadths of brilliant be- 
spangled silk. The vines run from tree to tree, laden 
with bunches of golden grapes which bring to my mind 
an excellent Predore wine with a fruity flavour. A 
few gardens extend languorously between the road 
and the lake. On the hillsides there are first olive-trees, 
then, throwing their dull gray into relief, evergreen 
oaks and chestnuts. In the background, high moun- 
tains stand out sharply against a sky so intensely blue 
that it has metallic reflections, and recalls the blue the 
Primitives painted behind the heads of their Madonnas. 
Beyond these again a fine white line indicates the crest 
of the glaciers. 

But the water attracts me. I ask a fisherman to 
take me across the lake. Lulled by the monotonous 
movement of the oars, I see as in a dream the land and 
the whit© houses which glisten in the sun fading away 
in a golden dust. Here and there on the hills a village 
clings round a bell-tower, like swallows' nests on the 



LAKE SCENERY 43 

edge of a roof. The water glitters till we seem to be 
slipping across a frameless mirror. A warm breeze, 
heavy with the scents of djdng summer, fans us. The 
air is so pure that I hear the sounds from the two shores 
distinctly, and when the siren of a steamer shrills 
through the air, I imagine I see the waves of sound 
rippling over my head. 

It is an exquisite hour, and I seem suddenly to 
appreciate the essential charm of these lakes. It lies 
in the fact that the horizon is restricted, and that the 
eyes rest on actual definite things. All along the 
Mediterranean coasts, on the Riviera, at Naples, Palermo 
or Corfu, gardens as lovely lie in the languid air on the 
shores of water no less deeply blue. The joy of life 
may be felt before panoramas no less marvellous. The 
sea even augments their majesty ; but from the very 
fact of its majesty, its infinitude, and above all, its 
mobility, its hold upon us is less direct, less physical, 
so to speak. It limits neither eye nor mind ; it offers 
adventure too boundless ; it is not, like the lake, within 
the limits of sight and desire. The sea is like a woman 
dancing at a distance in a shifting scene ; the Italian 
lakes are beautiful maidens yielding to our embrace. 
We have but to hold out our hands to touch and clasp 
them. Like those October roses whose petals fall at 
a touch, they are ready to sink into our arms. They 
seem to offer themselves, like the nymph described by 
Politian in one of his Stanze, who advanced, laden with 
flowers, and whose " suave and gliding movement," 
il dolce andar soave, he praises in words I translate 
inadequately enough. 

A less joyous vision recalls me to realities. The 
boat passes Tavernola, where I remember breakfasting 
one morning under a pergola of roses. The charming 
village is now but a heap of ruins, of gutted houses. 



44 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

On March 3, 1906, a large portion of the place slipped 
and disappeared into the water. But why should we 
grieve ? Does it not teach us once again that we must 
enjoy life in the few days left us ? 

And yet this thought of death, in the midst of the 
joyous splendour around me, returns insistently. I 
think of the stern phrase of Lucretius : surgit amari 
aliquid. And almost involuntarily, I made my way 
as soon as I landed to the gate of a little cemetery I 
had noticed from the boat. There was no one in sight, 
not even a custodian. Only a flock of sparrows, which 
flew off at my approach with shrill twitterings. 
Cypresses, those untiring sentinels, watched over the 
dead ; their mourning spears rose in rigid lines along 
the box borders of the alleys. Between their black 
trunks stood the white marble of a few memorial monu- 
ments, or wooden crosses enclosed by railings ; wistaria 
and Virginian creeper, reddened by the summer sun, 
clung to the iron which had already rusted. On some 
of the tombs, willows dropped the languid tears of their 
foliage. 

How much better must it be to sleep here, than in 
those sumptuous modern cemeteries where the bad 
taste of the contemporary Italian is so horribly displayed. 
It would be dreadful to me to think that I should one 
day lie in the Campo Santo of Genoa or Milan, surrounded 
^ by men in stone frock-coats and women in flounced skirts, 

J weeping and grimacing, handkerchief in hand, figures 

whose coarsely reaUstic attitudes recall the wax-works 
of the Musee Grevin. How much sweeter and softer 
is the shade of these willows ! 

Outside the burial ground, and on the bright terraces 
that rise above it, flowering shrubs, fig-trees loaded 
with fruit, and olive-trees of tarnished silver spread 
their verdant branches. An arbutus covered with red 



LOVE AND DEATH 45 

berries gleams in the sun like a tree of coral. Vines 
cling to the poplars ; the grapes have not yet been 
gathered ; swarms of wasps and bees murmur round 
the over-ripe fruit. Life seems everywhere triumphant, 
yet between these walls, in the dim shade of the 
cypresses rising heavenward in an eternal prayer 
reigns a motionless peace, a cloistral silence. Only 
the long locks of a eucalyptus sway in the wind, showing 
flashes of silver. And this contrast causes me a strange 
agitation, more poignant than that I felt on the lake. 
I have never been able to enter a cemetery without 
emotion ; and I have never felt more intensely the 
close relation between life and death than here, between 
these images of mortality and this exuberance of life. 
I seem like one of Orcagna's young nobles, one of those 
three " living ones," who, returning from hunting, 
after tasting the delight of life and the perfume of the 
woods, pass by festering corpses and breathe corruption 
and death. How touching was that idea of Barres', 
who regretted that the burial-grounds of the little 
villages about the Italian lakes were not all situated 
close to the waters, receiving the caresses of the waves 
cast upon the shore by passing pleasure-boats. Such 
a vicinity would enhance the joy of lovers and give 
them that sense of exaltation felt by Venetian couples 
when they cross themselves as their gondolas glide 
past the red walls and the crosses of San Michele, or 
wander hand in hand under the sombre yews of the 
Franciscan island. Is it not natural, indeed, that 
enjoyment should be heightened when we remember 
that it is perishable, and that the coming second may 
snatch it from us ? The lovers of the past who used 
to give their mistresses a memento mori were far-seeing. 
The delicately carved little skeleton turned their 
thoughts perpetually on death, and stimulated their 



46 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

desires. I understand why Michelet took his betrothed 
to Pere-Lachaise, and talked to her of love among the 
tombs. For Love finds pleasure in proximity to Death ; 
and often they walk hand in hand, the warm, rosy 
fingers of Love in the bony clasp of Death. I forget 
where I read that it was Don Juan of Manara who 
commissioned Valdes Leal to paint the horrible picture 
of the Two Corpses which is still in the Caridad of Seville, 
and in which a bishop and a noble are seen lying in 
their coffins, devoured by loathsome worms ; the 
lover of the thousand and one, we are told, sought to 
exasperate the ecstasy of regret by imaging his own 
beautiful face, which he had seen so often reflected 
in eyes brilliant with desire, thus disfigured and devoured. 
When Heinrich Heine tells us in his Memoirs of his love 
for the daughter of the Diisseldorf executioner, he 
recalls most vividly her long red tresses, which, when 
twisted round the young girl's neck, made her look 
like a decapitated person. But nowhere are Love and 
Death more inseparable than on Itahan soil. I wish 
I had brought Leopardi's works with me ; I would have 
read the verses in which the poet of Recanati proclaims 
the mournful fraternity of Love and Death. In this 
burial ground enframed in the splendour of Lombard 
gardens, I should have appreciated the austerity of 
the elegy, the stern workmanship of which recalls the 
harsh landscapes of the Marches : 

Fratelli, a un tempo stesso, Amore e Morte 
Ingenero la sorte.^ 

Born at the same time, Love and Death are brothers ; 

this idea has always been a favourite theme of the 

Italian poets. In several passages of the Vita Nuova, 

Dante stimulates his passion by thinking of Beatrice 

^ Fate conceived Love and Death, the brothers, at the same 
moment. 



A RELIGION OF THE SENSES 47 

in her shroud ; and on the ancient walls of the Campo 
Santo of Pisa, in the background of that Triumph of 
Death on which I have just been musing, there is a 
coppice near the old mail-clad virago, where in the 
golden shade of orange trees, careless lovers sport 
joyously as in one of the scenes of gallantry of the 
Decameron. Religion, too, is akin to Love ; in the 
adoration of the Virgin by men, and of Jesus by women, 
there is often a sensual ardour. Not that I doubt 
the purity and sincerity of most religious sentiment. 
But there are cases in which feminine devotion is but 
a perverted tenderness, addressed to the Son of Man 
in lieu of the lover. I think there can have been no 
more amorous creature than Saint Teresa, who even 
pitied Satan because he can never know the joys of 
love. But it is here in Italy that it is most difficult 
to define the limits of religion and sensuality ; and the 
Dominican nun. Saint Catherine, was even more 
amorous than the Spanish saint. The letters of the 
Sienese overflow with a passion in which the ecstasy 
is rather sensual than religious. In despite of the 
Church — ^nay, sometimes even under its auspices — ^for 
a Pope was not afraid to approve the burial in San 
Gregorio, among the sacred monuments, of the famous 
courtesan Imperia and the inscription on her tomb 
of her notorious calling — the old religion of Beauty and 
Pleasure revives in this land which so long nourished 
it, and mingles with Christian worship. I do not know 
if it be true, as is said, that certain procuresses of Venice 
and Naples are accustomed to show the young girls 
they have for sale in the churches, but I remember 
being accosted behind a piUar in St. Mark's. 

While I meditate thus, a young woman of the people, 
bare -headed and dressed in black, enters the cemetery. 
Her wooden shoes, which, after the fashion of the 



48 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

country, cover only the tips of her feet, clatter on the 
ground. She approaches and lays a bunch of flowers 
on a newly-dug grave marked by a simple cross. My 
presence embarrasses her. She kneels for a moment, 
murmurs a brief prayer and goes away, wiping a furtive 
tear from her eyes. 

The vanilla-like scent of oleander mingles with 
the pungent smell of box and cjrpress. The wind brings 
the odour of the neighbouring gardens. Here, again, 
everything tells us that we must enjoy life for the 
brief span remaining to us. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BRESCIA 

If Vicenza is the city of Palladio, Brescia is that of 
Moretto. True, Brescia has many other interesting 
aspects. But in these Italian cities, so rich in marvels 
of every kind, the traveller must be moderate, and among 
the many flowers of the parterre, he must choose the 
loveliest and rarest. 

Travellers seem to have shown little interest in the 
city before our own day. Stendhal, who saw it in 1801, 
tells us that it is " fairly attractive, of medium size, 
situated at the foot of a little mountain and sheltered 
from the north wind by its fortress on a mamelon of 
the mountain." This was all that struck the author 
of La Peinture en Italie in the birth-place of Moretto. 



CHARACTER OF BRESCIA 49 

Taine did not halt between Verona and Milan ; he 
hardly deigned to cast a glance at Lake Garda from the 
railway carriage at Desenzano. Theophile Gautier 
certainly speaks of " Vicenza," but this was the name 
of a Venetian brunette of whom he made a pastel 
drawing ; as to Brescia, he passed through it at night, 
and stayed only an hour, to change horses ; he noted 
only the height of the houses and the delicious freshness 
of the water. 

The situation of the town is delightful, at the foot 
of the Alps, the Brescian wall of which is pierced by the 
valleys of Camonica, Trompia and Sabbia. The Oglio, 
the Mella and the Chiese debouch from these and spread 
fertility over the plain. Few horizons are more varied 
and verdant than those which encircle the fortress. 
It is easy to understand the taste of the inhabitants 
for landscape and fine prospects, nor are we surprised 
to find so many of the inner courts of the houses 
decorated with frescoes which give an illusion of 
country scenes and woodland greenery. ^ 

Few cities have a more glorious past than 

Brescia la forte, Brescia la ferrea, 
Brescia leonessa d'ltalia 
beverata nel sangue nemico.^ 

These verses of Carducci's well express the martial 

character of the city, which still derives its wealth from 

the weapons it forges, and proclaims itself " the mother 

of heroes." The plain of the Mella still bears the name 

of the Valley of Iron and the towers, Torre della Pallata 

and the Torre del Popolo, evoke the memorable sieges 

undergone by Brescia on account of its strategic position, 

at the opening of the valleys which descend from the 

Tyrol. Scarcely a century passed when it was not 

^ Brescia the strong, Brescia the stern, Brescia the lioness of 
Italy, steeped in the blood of her enemies. 

E 



50 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

forced to defend itself. Gaston de Foix sacked it for 
a week. Bayard, who commanded his vanguard, 
showed his nobility of character there. We read in 
the Loyal Serviteur how he behaved to the two young 
girls of the house to which he was brought when 
wounded ; to their terrified mother, who offered him 
a ransom, he said : " Madam, I know not whether I 
shall be healed of my wound ; but as long as I live, no 
discourtesy shall be shown to you or to your daughters 
any more than to my own person." Away from France 
it is pleasant to recall the chivalrous traits of our country- 
men. The Brescian women took part in the fighting, 
and have left a reputation of masculine courage. 
Brescians still cherish the memory of Brigitta Avogrado, 
who, at the head of a battalion of women, repulsed an 
assault of the enemy. The women of to-day no longer 
fight ; but they seem to have retained their martial 
character, to judge by Alfieri's ironical verses : 

Veggio Brescians donne iaiquo speglio 

farsi de' ben forbiti pugnaletti, 

Cui prova o amante infido o sposo veglio.^ 

This warlike past, which began with the conflicts 
of the old Brixia of the Celts and continues to SoKerino, 
sets a halo of glory about the town which seems to be 
guarded by the beautiful Victory of the Temple of 
Hercules built by Vespasian. It is one of the most 
moving statues I know. All the great Italian poets 
have sung it. D'Annunzio devoted one of his proudest 
sonnets to it : 

Bella nel pepio dorico, la parma 
poggiata contro la sinistra coscia, 
la gran Nik6 incidea la sua parola. 

* I see Brescian women making themselves evil mirrors of 
polished daggers, to be tested by faithless lover or aged husband. 



IL MORETTO 51 

" O Vergine, te sola amo, te sola I ' ' 
grido ranima mia nell' alta angoscia. 
Ella rispose : ** Chi mi vuole, s'arma ! " ^ 

But let us forget the bellicose city, and give an hour 
to the delightful Municipio, where we find Palladio's 
hand again in the frames of the windows, and to the 
Old Cathedral, so noble, so austere and so poignant 
that the very soul of the city seems still to be quivering 
in it. And let us devote ourselves to Moretto. 

Alessandro Bonvicino, called H Moretto : here in 
one of those painters whose name is familiar to all, 
but whose works are known to very few. When some- 
thing has been said about his silvery grays, with the 
addition that he is one of the most fascinating painters 
of Northern Italy, the subject seems to be exhausted. 
True, it is difficult to form a complete idea of him with- 
out visiting Brescia. Nevertheless, some of his canvases 
still remain in Lombardy and Venetia. I noticed 
several in the Brera and at San Giorgio in Braida at 
Verona. Venice has examples in the Accademia and 
the Layard Collection ; and also the Christ at the House 
of Simon the Pharisee which is at the Pieta, in the 
nuns' tribune ; unfortunately, the church has been 
under repair for several years and the picture, one of 
the master's most important works, can no longer be 
seen. The two panels in the Louvre, representing 8. 
Bernardino of Siena and S. Louis of Toulouse, are by 
no means adequate examples : yet when we examiue 
them attentively we are fascinated by the calm, broadly 
treated faces, the quiet, noble attitudes, the sober 
and harmonious draperies which give a simplicity and 

^ Fmr in her Doric peplum, her shield on her left hip, the great 
Nike cut short his words. " O Virgin, I love but thee, but 
thee ! " cried my soul in its lofty anguish. She answered : ** Let 
him who desires me arm himself." 

E 2 



52 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

unity to the general effect rare among the painters of 
the period. 

At Brescia, on the other hand, it is easy to follow 
the artist step by step in his development. The 
town is full of his pictures. There are examples in 
every church, and one, San Clemente, is a museum 
of the works of the painter, who is buried there. As 
to the Martinengo Gallery, the principal room is almost 
entirely occupied by Moretto ; it contains fourteen df 
his pictures ; and this year the custodian showed me 
a fifteenth which had come from the Santa Zitta 
Institute. 

The exhibition of Moretto 's works, held at Brescia 
in 1898, did much to make his name known. The 
catalogue registered seventy works, coming almost 
exclusively from the town itself or its immediate neigh- 
bourhood. A great many had to be put aside for 
lack of space. For this reason the exquisite picture 
from the church of Paitone, The Virgin appearing to 
a Deaf Mute, was not included. 

The silvery-gray tone noted by all art-critics is, 
indeed, one of the characteristics of the master, especially 
towards the close of his career. It is very noticeable 
when we can compare him with other painters, as for 
instance at the Venice Accademia or even at San Giorgio 
in Braida at Verona, which is a kind of museum of the 
Schools of north-eastern Italy ; his beautiful Saint 
Cecilia is very individual in colour. But we must 
beware of exaggeration, and this silvery gray is to be' 
found in Romanino, his master and rival, and in other 
painters of the district. This very year I noticed it 
in Girolamo da Treviso, in two pictures of the gallery 
which precedes the famous Malchiostro Chapel. 

Moreover, II Moretto has other qualities. After 
spending several hours in the Gallery, I tried to f ormu- 



IL MORETTO'S COLOUR 53 

late a few general ideas as to his work. Two very 
marked characteristics presented themselves to my 
mind. 

In the first place, the artist possessed in the highest 
degree the gift of harmony and gradation in his colour. 
His taste is sure and deUcate. The tones are contrasted 
and balanced with the most cunning art. Grays, 
yellows and pale blues give freshness and brilliance 
to all his compositions. In certain canvases there is 
a little of that fusion which has sufficed to immortalise 
Correggio, and that vaporous gradation of tints which 
the ItaUans call sfumato. Everything is combined for 
the delight of the eye : the figures, the draperies, the 
ornaments, the accessories and also the landscapes in 
which he excels. One of the latest acquisitions of the 
Gallery is the fresco in the centre of the room, a Christ 
bearing His Cross, removed from the church of San 
Giuseppe, where it was deteriorating ; here we may 
admire a panorama of mountains crowned with fortresses, 
which further enables us to appreciate his knowledge 
of perspective. 

The other quality is the perfect equiUbrium the 
master always achieves between the conception of the 
work and its material execution. When treating 
religious subjects, he gives his figures the dignity and 
nobility that befit them. A deeply spiritual life 
irradiates their faces. In his Saint Anthony of Padua, 
the simple, tranquil majesty of the saint who raises 
the lily with an ample gesture, the ardent veneration 
of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino as he contemplates the 
thaumaturgist, the benevolent serenity of Saint Anthony 
Abbot leaning on his crutch characterise an unforgettable 
trio. All his Virgins have a poignant gravity. They 
are far removed, indeed, from the complicated art of 
the Florentines, that Madonna of Saint Barnabas, for 



54 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

instance, under which Botticelli was impelled to write 
Dante's verse 

Vergine madre, filia del tuo Figlio.^ 

to explain the mysterious and enigmatical expression 
in the eyes of the Virgin ; far too from the Virgins 
the tender Luini was painting at the same time, whose 
carnosita, or tondezza, as the Italians call it, is more 
akin to pagan beauty than to the Christian ideal. 
Moretto followed in the main the Venetian tradition, 
which is free from the literary, theological or philo- 
sophical pre-occupations of the painters of Rome and 
Florence. Like Titian or Palma, with whom he worked, 
Bonvicino is quite untouched by these more intellectual 
than pictorial influences. His Salome even is so calm 
and serious that we are surprised to learn that she is, 
as the inscription under the picture tells us, the fierce 
princess who " caput saltando dbtinuit " (who obtained 
the head by dancing). This imperturbable serenity 
has been taken by some for sadness, and a certain 
writer tried to account for it by the impression made 
on the painter by the calamities that befell Brescia 
during his youth. 

These qualities of Moretto 's are recognisable in 
the rich series of pictures which adorns the walls of 
the Brescian churches. The masterpiece among them 
is the Coronation of the Virgin, in the Church of San 
Nazzaro e San Celso. But it is at San Clemente that 
we can enjoy the gentle genius of the master in all 
its purity. Here, together with his perishable body, 
is the very soul of Bonvicino. How radiant is his 
Virgin surrounded hy Saints behind the high altar ! 
Who that has once seen the warrior, Saint Florian, 
that gallant youth in the armour with golden reflections, 

^ Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, 



ROMANINO 55 

can ever forget him ? The canvas attracts the traveller 
directly he crosses the threshold of the little church, 
and draws him back to it with irresistible magic. The 
whole nave seems to be irradiated by it. There is 
no finer example of the artist's two gifts : colour and 
composition. 

Moretto also painted a few portraits, one of which 
is in the Martinengo Gallery ; in this branch, however, 
he is ecHpsed by the most gifted of his pupils, Giam- 
battista Moroni. But Moroni, though related to the 
School of Brescia through his master, belongs more 
especially to Bergamo. And Brescia is so rich that 
it need not borrow from its neighbour. 

Romanino, on the other hand, although he worked 
more outside his native city and travelled a great 
deal — even to Paris, where he worked in the Queen 
Mother's apartments in the Louvre — ^is thoroughly 
Brescian. Bom thirteen years before his pupil and 
rival Bonvicino, he survived him some twelve years. 
His career was long and prolific. The province of 
Brescia is full of his works, and there is not a village 
church in the Val Camonica which does not boast its 
picture or fresco by Romanino. He is represented in 
most of the great Italian galleries, sometimes by master- 
pieces, as at Padua, where his Madonna is perhaps 
the finest picture in the museum. Many churches too 
are the proud possessors of his works, notably San 
Giorgio in Braida at Verona, and the Cathedral at 
Cremona, where there are admirable frescoes I should 
like to have seen again this year, to complete my im- 
pression of the master. Though they are not free from 
occasional negligences and heavinesses, we can admire 
unreservedly the nobility of the attitudes, and above 
all, the colour, in which the beautiful yellow he alffected 
harmonises so finely with the gilded vault and pillars. 



56 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Beside them, Pordenone's famous works seem black 
and declamatory ; they look like pictures. Romanino, 
on the other hand, was a master of fresco. This may be 
seen even at Brescia, either in the Corpus Domini 
Chapel of San Giovanni Evangelista where he loses 
nothing by comparison with Moretto, or in the Museum, 
where are two frescoes, removed from the refectory 
of the Monastery of Rodengo ; save for the somewhat 
ungraceful attitude of the Magdalen (which we note 
again in a painting in the church of San Giovanni and 
in a Moretto at Santa Maria Calchera), the composition 
is powerful ; but it is mainly by the colour they triumph 
and produce the " extraordinary effect " spoken of by 
Burckhardt. Beside them, the artist's easel pictures pale 
somewhat, if we except the altar-piece in San Francesco, 
a masterly work he painted when he was stiU young, 
on his return from Venice. The influence of Titian is 
apparent here. The magnificent frame enhances the 
effect of this picture, in which beauty of form competes 
with splendour of colour. 

Compared with these two masters, the other Brescian 
painters seem to me greatly inferior, and I am surprised 
to find that some critics rank Savoldo with them. He 
is a second-rate artist, interesting only by virtue of his 
landscape backgrounds and effects of light. Moreover, 
save for the accident of birth, he has little connection 
with Brescia, where he is barely represented. He 
never threw off the influence of Venice, where he worked 
for a long time ; he has no individuality. He is no 
more noteworthy than a large number of the pupils 
of II Moretto and Romanino, who created an artistic 
centre important enough to enable an historian to say : 
" In the middle of the 16th century, Brescia was greatly 
superior to Florence." 

It is strange and regrettable that these schools of 



NORTHERN SCHOOLS 5 



1^ 



Northern Italy are so little known. The general ignor- 
ance of them is due to the fact that for a long time art 
criticism neglected Venetian painting and its collateral 
branches in favour of Florence and Rome. It sacrificed 
truly pictorial qualities to ideas and purity of line, 
following the example of Vasari, who speaks very 
summarily of the Northern painters, and dwells at 
length on the masters of Central Italy whom he had 
known personally or from immediate tradition. It 
was not until later, when colour was given the pre- 
ponderance due to it in painting, that it was shown 
how Venice, together with Florence and Rome, and 
almost untouched by them, had become a capital of 
art, and at least their equal. Then, naturally, as there 
were few records and little information available con- 
cerning the less important neighbouring schools, these 
were affiliated to Venice, and all the North Italian 
painters were classified as the disciples of Titian, whose 
reign had surpassed all others in length and splendour. 
At present these impressions have been corrected, 
and the characteristics of each group have been brought 
out. The first to be re-constituted was the School 
of Padua, which, though materially nearer than any 
other to Venice, submitted less than any other to 
Venetian influence ; its' scientific curiosity, its interest 
in expression, its precision, verging at times on dryness, 
have nothing in common with the voluptuous charm 
of the Venetians. Of the remaining Northern centres, 
Verona, Treviso, Vicenza, Brescia and Bergamo, Brescia 
was undoubtedly the most important and the most 
original. II Moretto was one of the greatest painters 
of Northern Italy. 



58 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER IX 

BEEGAMO 

" Passing over the plaias of Lombardy Oswald 
exclaimed : * Ah ! how beautiful it was when all the 
elms were covered with leaves and the vines hung 
in festoons between them/ Lucile said to herself : 
' Yes, it was beautiful when Corinne was with him ! ' " 
True indeed ! It is ourselves we project on the land- 
scape. But the road from Milan to Bergamo on a bright 
September morning is in fact delicious. " Magnificent," 
says Stendhal in his Journal, and he pronounces the 
region the loveliest spot on earth and the most ex- 
quisite he had ever seen. True, he also beheld it with 
the eyes of a youth of eighteen, and I am well aware 
that when he is moved by the glories of Nature, when 
a panorama, to quote his own words, " played as with 
a bow upon his soul," it was himself he put into things. 
Remember that curious phrase of his : " The line of 
the rocks as we approached Arbois seemed to me a 
lively image of Mathilde's soul." But Lombardy was 
always the land he loved, and we must admit that 
he, who wished for no title on his tomb but the word 
Milanese, remained faithful in his love and admiration. 

Walking along this road in the morning sunshine we 
realise the delight Leonardo must have felt when, leaving 
behind him his sweet but somewhat austere Tuscany, 
he viewed this plain where everything breathes joy 
and pleasure. How lovingly he must have studied 
its youths and maidens with their long, large eyes, 
deep and enigmatic under the shade of their warm 
eyelids. 

Ah ! the grace of those Italian mornings on roads 



HISTORY OF BERGAMO 59 

bordered by fields and meadows ! The air is pure and 
light. The vines run from tree to tree, from one pioppo 
to the other, like festival garlands. It is not surprising 
that they should always have enchanted Northerners, 
accustomed to the vineyards of France or the Rhine- 
land, with their stunted, surly stocks. Goethe declared 
that they had taught him the meaning of the word 
" festoon." As to President de Brosses, he describes 
them with all the tenderness of a Burgundian who 
confesses himself less sensitive to the beauty of cities 
than to the spectacle of Nature. He lauds the richness 
of these vines " all mounted upon trees, over the branches 
of which they clamber, and whence, as they fall, they 
encounter other sprays to which the vinedressers fasten 
them, till they form from tree to tree festoons laden 
with fruit and foliage. No opera scenery could be 
more picturesque or decorative than such a landscape. 
Each tree, covered with vine-leaves, forms a dome, 
whence hang four festoons which are fastened to its 
neighbour trees." 

But Bergamo now appears at a turn in the road. 
The old city rises in the golden light with the girdle 
of ramparts recalling its warlike past, the days of the 
Lombard League and the struggles against Milan. 
In 1428 Filippo Maria Visconti ceded it to Venice, 
which kept it in subjection till 1797, save for a few years 
when it belonged to Louis XII, after the Battle of 
Agnadel. For nearly four centuries it enjoyed peace 
and prosperity. It seems strange that though so near 
to Milan, it should have remained so long in the 
possession of Venice. But we can understand the pride 
of Francesco Foscari, when from the summit of the 
Campanile, gazing across the lagoon and the islands, 
he contemplated with aU the joy of possession the 
immense plain where he divined the presence of Treviso, 



60 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Padua, Vicenza and Verona, already subject to the 
Most Serene Republic, and the new possessions with 
which he had just endowed her, Bergamo and Brescia. 
How moving was the fate of this Doge, who, after 
exhausting all the intoxication of glory and popularity, 
tasted every bitterness, had to condemn and exUe his 
own son, to abdicate, and finally died of a sudden 
congestion, as he heard the bells summoning Venice 
to the marriage of his successor with the sea ! 

The new town lies in the plain between the Brembo 
and the Serio, ^affluents of the Adda. It is of no 
particular interest. The ancient Fair of Sant' 
Alessandro, where for centuries the finest Italian cloth 
was sold, lasts a month, from mid-August to mid- 
September, but it has lost its ancient prestige. The 
fiera is over, and the traders are taking down their 
stalls. It is amusing enough to watch the life of these 
exuberant Bergamese, whom BandeUo rallies in his 
Novelli. They are somewhat coarse and vulgar, like 
their Bergamasque dance and the music of their 
Donizetti. Perhaps the thought is suggested by the 
fact that I am in the land of Harlequin, but the people 
seem to me to be always acting. All these traders and 
peasants have most mobUe, varied faces ; with their 
grimacing mouths, their laughing eyes, their restless 
arms, they put an exaggeration into the expression 
of their sentiments which, though sincere, seems more 
akin to the theatre than to actual life. 

I am eager to revisit ancient Bergamo : instead of 
following the road which winds along the hillside and 
creeps up to the ramparts as if seeking to enter by 
surprise, I take a too modem but convenient funicular, 
which brings me to the heart of the city. Here the 
streets are calm and empty. There is nothing to dis- 
tract one from contemplation of the past. To the 



COLLEONI CHAPEL 61 

dreamer no towns are so precious as those which are 
so nearly dead that they are like beautiful tombs. He 
is not obliged, as in Rome and Florence, to make a 
constant leap from past to present. The silence of the 
deserted ways, the peaceful serenity of the buildings, 
the majestic air of solitude in palaces and houses all 
carry back the mind to one period and no alien pre- 
occupation intrudes. The central square, small but 
dramatic, where the heart of the community beat for 
centuries, is even more evocative. All the civil and 
religious buildings necessary for public life are gathered 
together in a dignified group. Silence reigns here. 
The grass is growing in places between the uneven stones 
of the pavement, recalling the verses d'Annunzio 
dedicated to Bergamo in his Cittd del Silenzio : 

Davanti la gran porta australe i sassi 
deserti verzicavano d'erbetta 
quasi a pascere i due vecchi leoni.'^ 

We will stop at the Colleoni Chapel. It is the 
masterpiece of Amadeo of Pavia, and one of the finest 
achievements of Lombard sculpture, which indeed, 
can boast only skilful artisans without much individu- 
ality, who worked mainly at collective tasks, such as 
the exuberant decoration of Milan Cathedral and the 
Certosa of Pavia. Amadeo played an important 
part in these works, which he directed for several years ; 
but he left some more notable productions, such as the 
bas-reliefs on the two pulpits in Cremona Cathedral 
and the sepulchral monuments of Santa Maria delle 
Grazie at Milan, the authorship of which has lately 
been restored to him on sufficient evidence. The 

^ Before the great south gate the deserted stones are green 
with grass, ahnost enough to serve as food for the two old 
lions. 



62 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Colleoni Chapel establishes his rank as the best Lombard 
sculptor of the Renaissance. 

The fagade is rather a great decoration than an 
architectural work, and there can be no doubt that the 
mouldings of the plinth, the gallery under the dome 
and the sculptures are by the hand of Amadeo ; we 
need but recall the details of the fagade of the Certosa 
of Pavia. Here we see the same graceful, rich and varied 
art, rather overloaded and highly coloured. I will not 
say with Burckhardt somewhat childish. The red, 
white and green marbles form an iridescent and on the 
whole, agreeable harmony. 

The interior has unfortunately been restored, and 
Tiepolo's three frescoes are out of keeping with their 
surroundings ; they complete the destruction of any 
religious and sepulchral character in the chapel. In 
addition to the two monuments it contains, Amadeo 
carved the delightful little fountain in the sacristy and 
the pillars at the entrance to the choir, which he 
decorated with vine-garlands and children treading 
out the grapes. The tomb of Medea, Colleoni 's daughter, 
was originally at Basella, in a cloister of the Dominican 
church ; it was only brought to this chapel in the course 
of last century. It is entirely of Carrara marble, and 
is a work of accomplished elegance, of simple and airy 
grace. The coffin is ornamented with three bas-reliefs, 
two of which are merely the arms of the city of Bergamo 
and of the Colleoni family respectively, surrounded by 
elegant wreaths of flowers and foliage. Above the 
sarcophagus are three small statuettes, the Virgin 
between Saint Magdalen and Saint Catherine. But 
I admire above all the recumbent statue of the dead 
woman, dressed in a richly embroidered robe. It is a 
life-size portrait, delicate and natural. 

Colleoni, greatly pleased with Amadeo 's work, thought 



TOMB OF COLLEONI 63 

of his own glory and ordered a tomb for himself. But 
as a simple sarcophagus in the chapel of some church 
did not seem to him adequate, he farther commissioned 
the artist to erect a special building for its reception. 

The Condottiere's tomb, richer and more imposing 
than that of his daughter, occupies the entire back- 
ground of the chapel, for Amadeo relegated the altar 
to a little lateral rotunda adjoining the main building. 
The monument consists of two superposed rows of bas- 
reliefs surmounted by an equestrian statue in gilded 
wood by a German master. The general effect is 
inharmonious and somewhat theatrical. The lower 
bas-reliefs are by far the best and most important ; 
they are carved in a single block of marble resting on 
four columns supported by lions ; they represent scenes 
of the Passion : a Flagellation which is a veritable 
miniature, a very animated Bearing of the Cross, a 
Crucifixion in which I noted the beautiful attitude of 
the swooning Virgin, a dramatic Entombment, and a 
Resurrection inferior to the rest, ill- composed and 
nerveless. These bas-reliefs, fascinating as they are, 
cannot be said, on close examination, to rise above 
fine studio- work. There is no evidence of passion in 
the artist, no inner life in the whole. The art is delicate 
and elaborate, but superficial ; the intense and exag- 
gerated expression is somewhat shallow and artificial. 
Amadeo 's art may be said to be an epitome of Lombard 
sculpture, which is rarely more than rich and pleasing 
decoration. 

This chapel seems to me a somewhat insipid sanctuary 
for the slumber of that Bartolomeo Colleoni whose 
stem, tall figure on the Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo 
of Venice haunts me in the midst of all this grace and 
puerility. But maybe it was Verrocchio who exaggerated, 
and his statue was rather a symbol of all those Con- 



64 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

dottier! of whom Colleoni was the last, than a realistic 
portrait. The great race of adventurers came to an 
end with Colleoni, and he died without having been able 
or perhaps willing to create a principality for himself. 
To the Venetian senators who came to greet him on his 
death-bed he said : " Never give to any other General 
the power you entrusted to me ; I might have turned 
it to worse account than I have done." He seems 
to have had no ambition but to amass a fortune and 
enjoy it, no care for anything but his glory and the 
name he was to leave behind him. He died before the 
chapel in which he wished to rest was completed. 
During his last days he often came himself to superintend 
the work ; then he would go and, from the ramparts 
which peace had already made useless, contemplate 
the plain where he had fought alternately for Venice 
and Milan. 

To-day there is nothing martial about the fortifi- 
cations ; but they give the town an air of majesty 
which it preserves with pride, like those fallen princes 
who jealously guard the paraphernalia of past splendour. 
They have been transformed into a magnificent 
promenade, shaded by fine trees, and so deserted that 
as soon as evening falls. Harlequin can keep his trysts 
without fear of interruption. A walk round Bergamo 
on a clear September morning on these ramparts is 
an exquisite experience. The views are infinitely varied. 
The landscape changes like some gigantic scene on 
the stage. To the north there is a panorama of moun- 
tains where the picturesque chain of the Bergamasque 
Alps stretches out, dominated by the peak of the Tre 
Signori. The valleys of Brembano, Imagna and Seriana 
open their deep, irregular gorges, clothed with pastures 
and forests. To the south, the wonderful plain of the 
Adda extends as far as the eye can reach, green and 



PLAIN OF THE ADDA 65 

smooth as a vast pacific sea. Fields of maize and 
cereals, meadows, rice-grounds, mulberries and fruit 
trees cover it with a luxuriance unknown in any other 
part of Europe. I can think of no landscape which 
gives such an impression of wealth, abundance and 
fertility. The immemorial lists of nations, we can 
understand the greed they evoked in all the conquerors 
who beheld them, from the hordes of Alaric to the 
soldiers of Barbarossa and Napoleon. Each crop here 
yields a double harvest, and hay is cut several times 
in one season. The Alps work this recurrent miracle 
with their melting snows and overflowing lakes. The 
fat soil is nourished by constant moisture. At this 
season especially, after a rainy day, one repeats in- 
stinctively the verse of the Georgics : Plenis rura 
natant fossis, for truly the meadows swim, the ditches 
overflow. It was in the kindred plain of the Mincio, 
like the Adda a tributary of the Po, that the elegiac 
soul of the Mantuan awoke. Never have I felt closer 
to him. The same atmosphere bathes me, that 
atmosphere of joy and plenty. At the foot of the ram- 
parts, on the sunny terraces, peasant women are 
gathering the grapes in large baskets, singing and 
chattering gaily, just as, two thousand years ago, the 
women must have made their vintage on the land of 
iEneas. 



F 



66 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER X 

THE TERKACES OF BELLAGIO 

I COULD not tear myself away from the garden of 
Lombardy without pausing at least for a few hours at 
Bellagio. I longed to see the sun set on those flowery 
shores from the terraces of the Villa Serbelloni, which, 
rounding the magic promontory, command the three 
arms of the lake in turn. The paths are bordered with 
roses, camellias and magnolias, pomegranate-trees with 
gnarled, twisted trunks like huge cables, orange and 
lemon-trees, the glaucous spears of the cactus, and 
huge aloes with massive fleshy leaves. The oleanders 
bend beneath the weight of their poisonous bouquets. 
On this afternoon of dying summer, odours more 
intoxicating than the must of vine-vats rise from the 
hot earth and the banks of flowers, disturbing emanations 
such as one breathes at Florence in the spring-time 
in the overcharged atmosphere of the Mercato Nuovo. 
It is as if one were standing in the middle of a hot- 
house where the pollen hangs heavily in the warm air, 
or plunged in a liquid pool of perfume. And above 
all these odours, the Olea fragrans sheds its powerful 
aroma. No flowering tree distils a scent more subtle, 
penetrating and exquisitely voluptuous than this olive 
of the far East, which has been acclimatised on the 
shores of the Italian Lakes, where it flowers in September. 
A single shrub perfumes a whole garden ; an invisible 
incense seems to enwrap him who approaches it ; as 
twilight darkens, the scent makes one almost dizzy. 

At every step exquisite glimpses of the banks of the 
lake are seen through the bosky verdure that borders 
the walks ; Bellagio is like a diamond set among the 



SERBELLONI GARDENS 67 

sapphires of the three encircling lakes, and the little 
towns lie crouched at the water's edge, like sleepy 
beasts in the dazzling sunset. I see pink and white 
villages, gay holiday houses in the midst of gardens 
and shady trees. 

Before me, bumble-bees shake out their wings and then 
drop heavily to the ground. Little gray lizards flee 
at my approach, slip into a hole in the wall, and peep 
at me with their shining eyes. Pigeons run about 
on the gravel, rolling along heavily as if they had not 
the strength to rise ; they remind me of the Borromean 
doves described by Barres, which, intoxicated by the 
accumulated scents of the terraces of Isola Bella, rose 
so lazily that he might have caught them in his hand. 
The hreva, the south wind which blows upon the lake 
after the mid-day calm, is still so warm that as it touches 
one's face, it feels like the brushing of moist lips. On 
each side of the path the flowers droop in voluptuous 
languor. At the ends of their long stalks, cannas 
open their hearts to the caresses of the breeze. Hot 
tears of resin flow from the burning bark of the pines; 
Cantharides spread their green wings motionless on the 
leaves. A golden mist hovers over the sharp summits 
of the cypresses, which seem to vibrate in the metallic 
atmosphere. The trees are WTeathed with Virginian 
creeper, blood-red amongst the green ; others, clothed 
in ivy intermingled with climbing roses, recall Mantegna's 
flowery porticoes. 

On the topmost terrace, crowning the promontory, 
whence the northern shores of the lake are seen as 
from the prow of a taU ship, a vast calm reigns. The 
graceful silhouettes of parasol pines stand out against 
the sky, and make a deUcate framework for the luminous 
landscape. Below them the gardens lie blurred by a 
bluish dust. The bare trunks of the olives look black 

F 2 



68 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

against the horizon ; but the shade of their foliage 
quivers with the old Virgilian softness ; when the wind 
lifts it, waves of silver run among the moving branches. 
It is the hour when the setting sun seems to linger 
lovingly before it disappears, as if anxious to immobilise 
for a moment the rich scene it illumines. The vast 
expanse of water reflects, as in a mirror, the golden 
and coppery tones that dying day casts on everything. 
The rippling water is like an expanse of shot silk ; 
where the sun catches it, it gleams like a damascened 
shield covered with brilliant scales. On the gilded 
shores the little towns are encircled by luminous haloes. 
Close at hand Varenna at the opening of the Val d'Esino 
extends in the verdure of its gardens. The Fiume 
Latte has been dried up by the heat ; but we can still 
perceive the track of the torrent which in spring-time 
descends in a cascade white and foaming as a stream 
of milk. By the water, on the railway cut in the solid 
rock beside the Stelvio road which forms a winding 
ledge, a train hastens towards Colico ; seen from here, 
it looks like a child's toy ; it plunges into the various 
tunnels, some of them so short that the engine emerges 
at one end before the last carriages have entered at the 
other. Towards the north, certain thin light lines 
suggest the distant villages, huddled upon the banks 
like flocks of gulls : Rezzonico and its old castle, 
Gravedona, Dervio at the foot of the pointed Legnone. 
A white boat steers slowly towards Menaggio, leaving 
behind it a triple furrow which widens gradually. 

But night is beginning to fall, and I must go down. 
As day dies, the scent of the flowers becomes more 
intense. Never does Nature speak more insistently 
to the senses than in the summer twiUght. The charm 
of the morning, like the love of a young girl, is woven 
of airy tenderness and purity ; the splendour of the 



LITERACY MEMORIES 69 

afternoons is full of voluptuous languor. The dawn 
is frank and joyous ; the sunsets are ardent and dreamy. 
The clusters of ivy, the flowery garlands that hang 
from trees and walls seem to me as indolent and 
lascivious as the arms of sleeping Bacchantes. In my 
growing exaltation, I imagine that I am walking in the 
enchanted gardens of Armida ; the couples I meet 
become the heroes of Tasso, forgetful of the world in 
their amorous frenzy. For these gardens, like all 
the others reflected in this lake, are not inert ; so 
many desires bore their fevers about here, so many 
vices lurked, so many guilty or terrible passions 
wandered under their complaisant shade that they are 
as it were saturated with voluptuous ferments. Beauti- 
ful love stories, intoxicating or disturbing, always stir 
the dark depths of our sensuality. Jean Jacques 
Rousseau was well advised when he gave up the idea 
of making the shores of these lakes the scene of his 
Nouvelle Heloise ; Julie's heroic struggle against un- 
lawful love would have been too unequal. Nature, 
and more especially this Italian Nature still under 
the domination of the great god Pan, is the most 
dangerous counsellor, the most redoubtable auxiliary, 
the most insidious accomplice of lovers. She teaches 
submission to brute forces. Only such purity as that 
of the Poverello and his companions of the Portiuncula 
could have failed to find Satan lurking in the leafy 
alleys of the woods. 

Under the great oak which shades the terrace near 
the villa I lean on the marble balustrade the red veins 
of which seem to swell with warm blood. Between 
the branches of the tree and through the slight veil 
of motionless leaves which interpose like the foreground 
of a stage scene, I see the two creeks of the lake 
quivering in the light amidst a double durve of green 



70 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

hills. The water is like molten gold, full of yellow 
and russet reflections. Though the sun has disappeared, 
it still works this miracle by illumining a few light clouds 
which hover over Generoso in the distance. These fiery 
clouds shed amber lights upon the lake; the parts 
of the sky which are clear tinge the waters with paler 
reflections. What a symphony in gold ! Any painter 
who should put it on canvas would be accounted 
extravagant ; in nature as in life, truth is often stranger 
than fiction. Between the arms of Como and Lecco, 
the Brianza spreads out its meadows, its vineyards, 
its mulberries and olives, a veritable hanging garden 
emerging from a bath of gold. Red roofed houses are 
scattered over it. I can see the famous gardens with 
musical names : Melzi, Poldi, the park of the Villa 
Giulia and its camellia groves, slumbering motionless 
in the languid air. Looking down on plateau and banks, 
softly rounded hills rise in graceful curves and leap one 
above the other like waves suddenly congealed. 

There are few more fascinating panoramas. True, 
Florence as seen from Fiesole or San Miniato, and the 
gentle Umbrian valley viewed from the Giardino di 
Fronte at Perugia, excite a deeper emotion ; but certainly 
there is no more voluptuous vision than this. Indeed, 
it is almost too beautiful. The excitement it produces 
is too violent, too physical, as I said of Lake Iseo. 
Our senses are taken captive by the languor that breathes 
from everything, and more especially from the water 
which lends a kind of feminine grace to the landscape. 
These shores have the warm sensuality of Lombard 
girls. The gaily coloured villas, festooned with garlands 
like dancing saloons, the painted roofs, the bedizened 
f a9ade3 smile like courtesans on the wayfarer. Carducci's 
verses are more applicable to Bellagio than to 
Salo: 



STENDHAL AT BELLAGIO 71 

Lieta come fanciulla che in danza entrando abbandona 

le chiome e il velo a Taiire 

e ride e gitta fiori con le man* piene, e di fiori 

le esulta il capo giovine.^ 

But alas ! the shores of Virgil's Lario have been 
more ruthlessly invaded by the cosmopolitan crowd 
than even Venice, Naples or Palermo. How Beyle 
would suffer could he return to the shade of the plane- 
trees of Cadenabbia, under the lovely Casa Sommariva, 
now Germanised and re-christened ! Yet man has 
not been able to disfigure the scene completely. So 
much natural beauty cannot be destroyed in a few 
centuries. From this spot Stendhal might read his 
fine description at the beginning of the Chartreuse de 
Parme without having to change much. He would 
recognise the enchanting sites of Tremozzo and Grianta, 
the Villa Melzi, the sacred woods of the Sfondrata, 
and " the bold promontory which separates the two 
arms of the lake, the. voluptuous side towards Como, 
the austere branch towards Lecco, sublime and graceful 
prospect which the most famous view in the world, 
that of the Bay of Naples, equals, but cannot surpass." 
Perhaps he might still find everything here " tender, 
noble and eloquent of love ; " but he could hardly add 
as he did that " here nothing recalls the ugliness of 
civilisation." 

Night has fallen gently and gradually. Things are 
wrapped in silky veils. An invisible mist has risen 
from the waters, has blurred the sharp outlines, and 
draped the shores in supple velvet. The hiUs seem to 
have drawn themselves together round the lake. Long 
vaporous scarves float over the tree-tops. The moonless 

* Joyous as a maiden who, entering the dance, tosses hair and 
veil to the winds, and laughs and throws flowers with lavish 
hands, and with flowers delights her youthful head. 



72 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

heavens are spangled with stars which the moisture 
in the air causes to seem less distant and more brilliant. 
The Pleiades, still breathless from the pursuit of Orion, 
twinkle hurriedly, like palpitating hearts. The Milky 
Way is all aglow. This evening the stars do not suggest 
the golden nails of the ancients, but rather globes of 
fire suspended in the darkness and ready to fall, drawn 
down by the perfumes of the earth and the languor 
of the waters. But very soon they pale. The moon 
rises on the horizon, over Lecco where the mountains 
dip. It seems to be emerging from the lake. In the 
mist which veils all contours the ancient heathen 
divinity, the confidant of lovers and astrologers, is 
a fiery boat burning in the night. Under its slanting 
rays the Lecco arm shines like a silver mirror. 

It is a very hot evening. I hear the muffled panting 
of a big steamer making its way to Menaggio in a blaze 
of electric light. Then silence, peaceful and complete, 
save for the blundering flight of an occasional bat, 
and the tireless lapping of waves against the banks. 
Gradually I yield to the solemn emotion which all 
impressionable souls feel before the serenity of Nature 
on a still night. Life seems to pause and sleep in such 
nocturnal hours, like Michelangelo's recumbent woman, 
and until dawn only man and the world will continue 
to grow old. From the silvery skies a bluish duSjt 
falls on the scented gardens whose incense still flows 
out in heavy waves. The sail of a skiff gleams in th,e 
moonbeams, a great white swan afloat on the quiet 
waters. Only a light or two still twinkle in the distance 
like little winking eyes. Bellagio is falling asleep 
amidst the perfumes. 



PART II 

EMILIA 



CHAPTER I 

PIACENZA 

Before continuing my journey to Umbria, I will 
take advantage of this fresh, moist season of early 
autumn to revisit Emilia and follow the Via Emilia 
from end to end. I trust a benignant sky will spare 
me the fatigue of those dusty torrid days, when the 
traveller finds it impossible to slake his thirst, in spite 
of the innumerable drinks he swallows in all the osterie. 
Frequent rains have left the landscape almost green 
and he may tread the road of two thousand years 
without being blinded by clouds of dust. Sometimes 
he will even notice a trickle of water in those famous 
torrents of the Apennines which are generally dried 
up for six months of the year, and whose beds, often 
wider than those of our largest rivers, cannot even serve 
to dry linen, according to the time-honoured jest, 
since no pool of water in which to wet it is available. 

There is no happier illustration of the intelligence 
of the Romans than the conception of the Via Emilia. 
They perceived very clearly that the straight line would 
not, in this case, be the shortest way to unite their 
capital to the towns of Upper Italy and to trans-Alpine 
countries. By skirting the Apennines, they evaded 
both the difficulty of constructing a wide carriage - 
road through a wall of mountains, and the dangers of 
permanent contact with warlike populations who 

75 



76 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

would have found it easy to guard the passes and bar 
access to them. They also saw that the favourable 
point for an invasion of the Gauls, who had already 
poured into the valley of the Po, was towards the 
Adriatic, where the narrow plain between sea and 
mountain forms a natural corridor. Thus, after having 
completed the Via Flaminia, they marked out the new 
road which, running in a straight line from Rimini to 
Piacenza, makes a magnificent strategic bulwark. The 
skill of the Consul Marcus ^milius Lepidus who carried 
out this plan in the year of Rome 567 was so perfect 
that after twenty-one centuries, the Via Emilia is still 
the principal route of communication for the region, 
and that no modification of the course would be 
necessary, were the road to be constructed anew to-day. 
He overcame all the difficulties that presented them- 
selves by making it pass neither too near the Apennines, 
which would have exposed it to the rigours of a very 
severe winter climate, and necessitated artificial pro- 
tection, nor through the lower part of the plain, where 
the numerous marshes of those days were dangerous 
to health. 

It was at Piacenza that the Via Emilia ended, and 
it was thence the three great roads leading from 
Italy into Gaul started : one by Genoa and La Turbie, 
the other by Susa, Brian9on and Die, the third by 
Aosta and the Little Saint Bernard. The choice of 
Piacenza as the outpost fortress to ensure the free 
passage of the legions across the Po also indicates a 
high degree of practical sense. The town is still, by 
virtue of its position, an important citadel ; if an 
invasion were threatened from the north-east, the de- 
cisive encounter would probably take place at Piacenza, 
which commands the river between Cremona and the 
passes of Stradella^ 



PALAZZO COMUNALE 77 

Founded very early as a military colony, the city 
flourished throughout the Roman period and in the 
Middle Ages, when it was one of the most active 
members of the Lombard League. Its decline dates from 
the time of the Famese, who are disagreeably recalled to 
the visitor by the inelegant remains of a heavy castle, 
and the two equestrian statues of Alessandro and 
Ranuccio which Stendhal stigmatised as " more absurd 
than the statues in Paris." It is undeniable that the 
charming Piazza dei Cavalli is disfigured by Francesco 
Mocchi's two monuments, the works of a forerunner 
of Bernini, whom he equalled in theatrical exaggeration 
and surpassed in bad taste. It is to be feared that 
the Piacenzans, who appear indeed to be proud of him, 
will never banish him from the fine faQade of their 
communal palace. 

This building of white marble and rosy brick is a 
masterpiece, and I know few structures of the Gothic 
period at once more majestic and seductive. The 
lower storey consists of a marble portico of five great 
pointed arches open to the street, where the citizens 
walk to and fro to-day as they did five centuries ago, 
passionately discussing questions of local politics with 
musical expressive intonations. On this plinth of sun- 
kissed marble rests the upper part of the building, a 
single storey in red brick, crowned by a cornice of 
indented battlements. Six round-headed arches en- 
frame the very graceful windows, richly pierced and 
decorated with slender columns ; no two windows are 
alike. On the lateral walls the windows are still more 
fanciful ; on one side they are surmounted by a rose- 
window, on the other by an elegant square dormer. 
This palace is perhaps the eariiest and certainly one 
of the richest of those municipal buildings which bear 
witness to the prosperity of the towns of Upper Italy 



78 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

in the Middle Ages, and attest their independence. In 
the plain of the Po, where the air was freer and livelier 
than elsewhere, Gothic civil architecture developed 
untrammelled. The cities, numerous and powerful, 
rivalled each other in the splendour of their communal 
buildings. Piacenza, proud of its Roman past, was 
bent on being one of the first in the contest. 

Leaving the Municipio, I feel disinclined to revisit 
the other sights of the town. The Cathedral is certainly 
a fine Romanesque church, but I know of others more 
beautiful upon my route, and I am not allured by the 
frescoes of Guercino or Carracci ; why should one on 
his way to Bologna seek out the works of these painters, 
which he remembers having seen to satiety, almost 
with nausea ? The Madonna di Campagna possesses 
some famous frescoes by Pordenone ; but are they 
better than those of the Malchiostro Chapel at Treviso, 
or those in Cremona Cathedral, which I thought so 
declamatory beside the works of Romanino ? I recall 
a chapel in this little church of Piacenza, with a strange 
Birth of the Virgin^ in which Saint Anne and the infant 
Mary are merely a pretext for the attitudes of servants 
in sumptuous robes, a work the art of which, skilful 
and superficial, is too obviously lacking in emotion. 
And as San Sisto has only a copy of Raphael's Madonna, 
now the pride of the Dresden Gallery, I elect to saunter 
through the streets of the town this bright and joyous 
evening, to admire the gay fagades of pink brick, and 
stroll down to the river. But here a cruel disappoint- 
ment awaits me ; the old bridge of boats admired by 
so many travellers is partly demolished ; a heavy 
stone bridge now unites the two banks of the Po, and 
to give access to this, they are pulling down old houses, 
and laying out a wide commonplace avenue with a 
tramway and electric lamps. A big slice of the majestic 



PLAIN OF THE PO 79 

landscape of former days is now barred and spoilt by 
gigantic arches of masonry. Alas ! it is the problem 
that presents itself in all old cities ! And can we 
blame those who strive to live again and shake off 
their torpor, who desire to obey the law of progress, 
especially when, as in this case, nothing essential has 
to disappear ? 



CHAPTER II 

BORGO SAN DONNmO. 

It is much to be regretted that at the exit from 
Piacenza by the Porta San Lazzaro there is no splendid 
triumphal arch to match that of Rimini, at the other 
end of the Via Emilia. After passing through a few 
suburbs which prolong the town a little, the road rapidly 
approaches the Apennines, of which there is a series 
of fine views. The rich fat country stretches out 
before one as far as the eye can reach. Though I see 
it every year, the amazing fertility of this plain of the 
Po never fails to fill me with astonishment We advance 
as between a double green hedge pierced by the golden 
rays of the sun. There is an endless succession of fruitful 
orchards whose trees arrest the eye. The cicalas utter 
their shrill cries, and seem as it were the soul of this 
gay and luminous landscape — Anacreon's cicalas, 
*' who care only to sing, who know not suffering, and 
are almost akin to the gods." In every one of her 
aspects, radiant or austere, fair Italy, Dante's dolce 
terra latina^ fetters and dominates us like a sorceress. 
It has been said that a friend who shows us too plainly 



80 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

that he is trjdng to form us provokes irritation, whereas 
a woman who forms ns while appearing only to charm 
us, is adored as a celestial being, the bearer of joy. 
"It is in this sense," adds M. Maurice Barres, " that 
men who for centuries have received all the intoxications 
of dehght from Italy justly caU her their mistress." 
I am surprised not to encounter more life and move- 
ment on the road this bright morning. Only at long 
intervals do we meet a motor-car, or groups of labourers 
going to the fields. We need not evoke the period 
when the tramp of the Roman legions made the cause- 
way tremble, nor the troubled days of the Middle 
Ages ; but how amusing it must have been barely a 
century ago, with the incessant going and coming of 
carriages, state-coaches, the escorts of Princes and 
Cardinals, the troops of soldiers, pilgrims and students ! 
In all ages, moreover, this Via Emilia, like all the other 
Latin highways, was traversed by artists and men of 
letters. There was constant communication between 
France and Italy, especially at the time of the Re- 
naissance. A sojourn in Rome was then, much more 
than now, the indispensable complement of a good 
education, and the traveller went thither to develop 
his intelligence as well as to acquire learning. Mon- 
taigne recommends his countrymen to go to Italy, 
not to learn " how many paces such and such a church 
measures, but to rub and file the brain against the 
brains of others." It was already the land chosen by 
poets in which to express their joy or lament their 
woe. Maynard, the good Maynard himself, took it 
for his confidant : 

J'ai montre ma blessure aux deux mers d 'Italia 
Et fait dire ton nom aux echos etrangers.^ 

1 I showed my wound to the two seas of Italy, and told thy 
name to the echoes of a strange land. 



OLD TRAVEL-BOOKS 81 

From the sixteenth century onward, countless French- 
men have seen their genius develop and have produced 
their masterpieces there. And it was of Poussin and 
Claude Lorrain, who both lived in Rome and died 
there, that Chateaubriand wrote : " Strange that it should 
have been French eyes which best saw the light of Italy." 

There is nothing more amusing than to read the 
works of the tourists of the past. The books of those 
who travelled through the Latin land are especially 
numerous. As far back as 1763, the Abbe Coyer 
apologised for publishing his impressions in these words : 
** After so many Travels in Italy formerly or recently 
published, another Journey in Italy ! What could be 
more wearisome ! " But he reassures himself at once, 
declaring that travellers are privileged to treat matters 
which have already been studied, and moreover, that 
Italy is such an inexhaustible mine of documents and 
works of art that it will never be completely explored. 
I like these old books — irrespective of the documentary 
interest there is in knowing what modifications have 
been brought about by successive civilisations — because 
they reveal the mental attitude of our forefathers, 
and are moreover the most delightful of travelling 
companions. They are never irritated by our gibes 
and impatience. When by chance we read in them 
some impression akin to our own we feel such a com- 
municative satisfaction that they seem to be sharing 
the pleasure of the coincidence. When, on the other 
hand, we find them entirely alien to our tastes and 
ideas, how subtle is our amusement. It is most curious 
to note how artistic sensations may be Poles asunder 
within an interval of three centuries. Montaigne, for 
instance, in the Lines he devotes to Piacenza, says not 
a word of the Municipal Palace, which seems to me the 
most noteworthy thing in the city. And here, at 

G 



82 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Borgo San Doimino where I have just arrived, he 
mentions only the walls the Duke of Parma was putting 
up round the town, and the preserve of apples and 
oranges served at his breakfast. Misson, in his famous 
Journey in 1688, speaks of the statues of Alessandro 
and Ranuccio Farnese, but never alludes to the Com- 
munal Palace. Between Parma and Piacenza he notes 
merely that he passes through Borgo San Donnino, 
" a little dismantled town." And in like manner the 
Abbe Coyer, who was a man of intelligence and an artist, 
travelling over this same route from Piacenza to Parma, 
remarks only that he crosses the river Taro, and ex- 
presses his surprise that it has no embankments. 

And yet how could anyone have failed to devote 
an hour to the Cathedral of San Donnino, a beautiful 
Romanesque building, the fine faQade of which is 
remarkable for the three porches adorned with sculptured 
lions and bas-reliefs ? It is one of the most interesting 
of the series of churches so numerous in Lombardy 
and the neighbouring provinces that their characteristic 
style has been christened Lombard. All the cities in 
the plain of the Po : Milan, Pavia, Cremona, Verona, 
Ferrara, to name the most important ; all those upon 
the Via Emilia : Piacenza which we have jUst quitted, 
Parma, Modena, Bologna, our present destination, 
have, like Borgo San Donnino, old cathedrals built 
in the course of the twelfth century. This Lombard 
style, in spite of the theories of certain students, who 
have been misled by the assumption that many of these 
buildings were much earher than they actually are, 
is merely derivative, a variation of the Romanesque. 
To be even more exact, this architecture is but a survival 
of Roman art, transformed by the new Romanesque 
art which was flourishing so magnificently in France. 
But here, as in all else, the Italians were original, even 



BENEDETTO ANTELAMI 83 

as imitators, and their energies were directed to the 
exterior of the monument, notably the fa9ade, which 
became a decorative work whose details, though often 
useless and arbitrary, are always strikingly effective. 
Blind arcades supported by miniature columns are 
multiplied unnecessarily to produce graceful galleries. 
Luxuriant ornament invades walls and porches. Here 
in the Cathedral of San Donnino, the sculptures are 
probably by the artist whose name is associated Avith 
the Cathedral and Baptistery of Parma : Benedetto 
Antelami. And as in the architecture, in this infant 
statuary Northern influences are evident. Antelami 
was undoubtedly familiar with French work ; it might 
even be supposed that he had worked at Aries, so closely 
do the carved reliefs imitate the frieze in the porch of 
Saint Trophime, and so great is the affinity between 
the statues of David and Ezeldel and those still to be 
seen on the fagade of Saint Gilles. 

After Borgo San Donnino, several little towns are 
passed ; then the way leads across the interminable 
bed of the Taro on a splendid, monumental bridge 
affording a fine view of the sullen flanks of the Apennines. 
The ever fertile plain surges, a verdant sea, on either 
side of the road. Here and there groups of trees rise 
above fields and orchards, pines and poplars which 
still mingle their shade as in the days of Horace : 

Pinus ingens albaque populus 
Umbram hospitalem consociare ainant 
Ramis.^ 

But the silhouettes of the towers and spires of Parma 
are already visible on the horizon. By the Via Massimo 
d'Azeglio, the Via Emilia penetrates into the heart 
of the city of Correggio. 

^ Immense pines and pale poplars love to mingle their boughs 
in hospitable shade. 

G 2 



84 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 



CHAPTER III 

PARMA 

No artist exercises so instant and irresistible an 
influence on a writer who is not primarily an art-critic 
as Antonio Allegri da Correggio. I remember the 
impression I received when years ago, I first entered 
the small rooms reserved for him in the Parma Gallery. 
Never had I yet been confronted by works which seemed 
to communicate their inward fire to me so swiftly and 
so intimately. As from those great lyrics which carry 
you away and kindle in you the ardour of their own inspi- 
ration, so from these pictures such a flame of emotion 
bursts forth that you have not time to reason or to 
analyse your agitation. The serious Buckhardt him- 
self speaks of " intoxication," and goes on to describe 
his emotion as " daemonic." It is because Correggio 
is above all a poet. Critics may argue as to the influences 
which formed him, may hesitate between Mantegna, 
Lorenzo Costa, Raphael, Dosso and others, may question 
whether or no he visited Rome ; not thus will they 
explain Correggio, an original genius 'who owed nothing 
to any person, to any teaching, to any school, to any 
city, and in respect of whom we might almost use the 
term spontaneous generation. He simply allowed his 
heart to speak, and expressed, not in sounds but in 
colour, the music within him. And because he had 
no master but his own inspiration, he was one of the 
most original of painters. No other varied so much ; 
no other modified his manner so often, simply in 
obedience to the moving caprice of his dream of beauty, 



CORREGGIO 85 

for which he incessantly created anew the means of 
expression dictated by his fancy. 

This solitary spirit was bom, moreover, in one of the 
Italian towns least affected by pictorial activities. 
These scarcely began in Parma before the end of the 
fifteenth century, and the few local artists of repute 
seem almost barbarous compared with those then work- 
ing in Florence, Padua, Venice or Mantua. After 
Correggio, again, we find the same mediocrity. His 
genius was too individual for the creation of a school ; 
not one of his imitators save Parmigiano produced a 
single interesting work. No other artistic centre 
which had boasted such a master, ever descended at 
once to the level of works so feeble and unattractive. 

Some critics deal severely with Correggio, and insist 
more especially on what is lacking in him ; I confess 
that I am deeply moved by this exuberant soul, whose 
sensations flow forth like swelling waves. What joy 
he must have felt in painting ! With that instinctive 
perception often shown by poets Musset describes 
him as : 

Travaillant pour son coeur, laissant h, Dieu le reste.^ 

No heart was ever more guileless and more sensitive, 
more vibrant and more ecstatic. But we must not 
look for psychology, nor intellectuality, nor depth of 
thought in his works ; we must seek the joy of life, 
serene pleasure, voluptuous delight. Never was feminine 
flesh rendered with so much emotion. Remember 
the Dande in the Borghese Gallery, the Antiope in the 
Louvre, the provocative Leda in the Berlin Museum, 
and above all, the rapt lo at Vienna. No painter ever 
ventured so far without leaving grace behind, as Schure 

^ Working for bis own heart, leaving the rest to God, 



86 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

once said ; his canvases burn and quiver, but their 
fervour redeems their audacity. 

Allegri was the painter of joy. His works breathe 
an intimate happiness ; they are worthy of him who 
sometimes signed himself Lieto (joyful). In spite of 
Vasari's gossip, it is probable that he was perfectly 
happy, and that few artists had a life of such unity ; 
one love, his wife ; one passion, his art. For nine 
years his existence, divided between the two, passed 
sweetly and calmly as a lovely dream. After the death 
of Geronima Merlini, he lived solely for his work, drawing 
a new power from his sorrow. It matters little that I 
am unable to say why his art delights me. Can we 
analyse the charm of a falling rose, a reflection in the 
water, a feminine glance ? Do we know why certain 
verses, more than any others, move us to tears ? As 
long as there are passionate natures, Correggio will in- 
toxicate them, and no place will be more delightful 
to them than the city of Parma, which is still ablaze 
with his genius. 

How many hours I have spent in the Pilotta, in the 
convent of San Paolo, in the Cathedral and in San 
Giovanni Evangelista ! There are, of course, other 
marvels here, such as the Baptistery, and other good 
pictures in the Museum, but in Correggio's city I care 
only to see his works, and even among these I have 
my favourites. I daresay that the most stupendous 
of these are the wonderful cupolas, where he found full 
scope for his poetic art, those cupolas which an ignorant 
Canon compared to a " hash of frogs " but for which 
Titian declared the artist would still have been in- 
adequately paid, had they been turned upside down 
and filled with gold for him. Unfortunately, they have 
deteriorated, and they are difficult to see ; my pious 
pilgrimage leads me to less imposing works. 



FRESCO OF S. JOHN 87 

The first is the magnificent portrait of the Apostle 
in San Giovanni Evangelista. Nothing could be more 
moving in its quiet simplicity than this head painted 
in a kind of lunette above the door leading to the 
cloisters of the Chapter House. The artist wished to 
represent S. John at Patmos. The beloved disciple 
is certainly younger than he was when he retired to the 
island ; but Correggio always loved to render youthful 
grace of a type akin to feminine beauty. The face of 
the Saint is illuminated by the dazzling apparition ; 
we feel that the Evangehst, transfigured and exalted, 
obeys the divine command almost involuntarily. He 
is truly the Seer. His burning eyes, the eyes not of 
one hallucinated, but of a visionary, probe the depths 
of infinity. Altius Dei patefecit arcana^ as Correggio 
has written upon the canvas. AU veils are torn away. 
S. John sees the eternal verities and penetrates 
into the essence of things. He looks fearlessly at the 
flaming Archangel, who holds the book with seven 
seals and reveals the supreme secrets. The symbolic 
eagle is plucking a feather from its wing, as if to ofifer 
it to its master that he may forthwith set down the 
terrific visions of the Apocalypse. The intensity of 
the colour, the transparency of the chiaroscuro give 
this fresco the appearance of an oil-painting. Time 
and a few retouches have injured it somewhat ; but in 
spite of this, the impression it produces is still profound, 
and I linger before it till I am put to flight by the 
importunate commentary of the sacristan, and the 
turning on of the electric lights with which sacrilegious 
admiration has surrounded the work. 

In the Little room of the Museum, however, I am 
allowed to study the Madonna with S. Jerome in 
peace. Of all the painter's masterpieces, this is the 
* He revealed more deeply the secret things of God, 



88 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

most perfect and the most complete. All his qualities 
find their highest expression here ; the magic of light 
could not be carried further. The very shadows are 
full of colour. And what a melting brush, at once 
light and luscious, has suggested the transparent skins 
and velvety carnations ! Well might Vasari declare 
this picture to be colorito di maniera meravigliosa e 
stupenda?- 

We, overlook the defects that might be noted in the 
S. Jerome and his somewhat ridiculotis lion, and see 
only the inimitable and unforgettable central group : 
the Virgin, the Babe, the angel, and above all, the 
Magdalen, the loveliest and sweetest figure left us by 
the painter of feminine grace. The supple attitude 
is incomparable ; we divine the movement of the body 
under the folds of the violet robe and the splendid golden 
yellow drapery. The hands are wonderfully painted, 
and the adoring gesture is one of the happiest inventions 
of the master : the Magdalen lays her cheek almost 
voluptuously against the Child's leg. The picture is 
in such excellent preservation and so brilliant that it 
looks as if it had been lately finished ; the tones have 
all the splendour of the first day, and yet they never 
clash, but are fused into absolute harmony. It is a 
triumph of the sfumato which reigns throughout the 
canvas, even in the upper part, where a peaceful bluish 
landscape is displayed under the folds of a great red 
curtain. The Virgin is seated on a rustic mound ; 
grass and flowers at her feet give the serenity of a rural 
scene to the picture. 

Beside this canvas all the rest, even the famous 

Madonna with the Bowl, pale a little. In the Palatine 

Library, however, there is a figure which may almost 

rival the Magdalen ; it is a Madonna blessed by Jesus^ 

^ Coloured in a marvelloua and stupendous manner. 



THE MADONNA AT PARMA 89 

the fragment of a painting originally in the hemicycle 
of San Giovanni Evangelista, and now over a door at 
the end of a long corridor. The enlargement of the 
choir of the church in 1587 entailed the destruction of 
the fresco, only the central part of which was preserved. 
The various fragments reproduced by the Carracci 
before its destruction, and the copy by Aretusi which 
replaces the original in the apse of San Giovanni 
Evangelista still enable us to form an idea of the 
composition as a whole. The essential portion was, 
happily, the fragment preserved in the Palatine Library. 
If the Christ is mediocre, the Virgin is very remarkable. 
AUegri never painted a head more expressive and more 
serene. The divine Mother folds her hands and bends 
her head to receive the crown from her Son with an 
exquisite gesture of gravity and submission. I re- 
member seeing in the Louvre a study by Correggio in 
which the Virgin has the same delicious action of the 
folded arms ; but the Parma head is greatly superior. 
I have a special affection for it, perhaps because it has 
escaped destruction, and perhaps, too, because it was 
beloved of Stendhal. " The Madonna blessed by Jesus, 
in the Library moved me even to tears," he declared. 
*' I shall never forget the downcast eyes of this Virgin, 
nor her passionate attitude, nor the simplicity of her 
draperies." 

I do not know if Stendhal was much in Parma, and 
many improbabilities in his famous novel might lead 
one to suppose the contrary ; but it is certain that 
he never forgot Correggio. " He who has never seen 
his works," he says, " knows nothing of the power of 
painting. Raphael's figures have the statues of 
antiquity for rivals. As feminine love did not exist in 
antiquity, Correggio is without a rival. But to be 
worthy to understand him, a man must have made 



90 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

himself ridiculous in the service of this passion." Here 
we have the secret of his admiration. If his dictum 
be true, no one could boast higher qualifications for 
such comprehension than Beyle. When he came to 
Parma for the first time on December 19th, 1816, and 
saw the " subHme frescoes,", he had just left Milan, 
his eyes, his heart and his mind full of one of the women 
he had loved most passionately, and who played the 
most important part in his life. He could think only 
of this Metilde Viscontini who seemed to him " a more 
beautiful version of Leonardo's charming Herodias." 
Had he any presentiment at the time that for nine 
years she would be the most ardent passion of his life, 
that he would beg for her love as a starving man begs 
for bread, and that she would die without yielding to 
him ? Perhaps he had some vague and secret premoni- 
tion of aU this when he declared bitterly that he had 
never been able to charm any but women to whom he 
was himself indifferent. Be this as it may, he never 
forgot Allegri's Madonnas. On May 6th, 1817, he 
travelled to Correggio to visit the master's birthplace, 
and was delighted to find " his soft eyed Madonnas 
moving about the streets disguised as peasants." 
And I beheve that the while he evoked the languorous 
shores of Lake Como, he recalled the grace of the 
Correggian heroines when he found such moving words 
to paint the exaltation of La Sanseverina, 

Indeed, where would the passion of love find a more 
favourable soil than in this city of Parma, surrounded 
by broad shady ramparts dominating a vast horizon 
which invites to reverie and meditation ? What 
places evoke more voluptuous dreanas than the park 
of that citadel in which Fabrice del Dongo languished, 
or the shade of those chestnut trees in the gardens of the 
former ducal palace, where Napoleon's forgetful wife 



VIEW OF MODENA 91 

indulged her belated passions ? Dante's immortal 
verse rises instinctively to the lips : 

Tutti li miei pansier parlan d'amore.^ 

and how sweet is this summer evening in the deserted 
alleys ! On the grass, studded in spring-time with 
pale violets, the broad dead leaves have laid a rusty 
mantle, touched here and there into burning patches 
by the slanting sunbeams. Wisterias, suggestive of 
bygone mourning garments, recall the memory of those 
who once wandered among these groves. A little 
Arcadian temple on an island in an artificial lake further 
reminds us of the evanescence of our joys. I am haunted 
by Lorenzo de' Medici's verses, the refrain of the 
Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne : 

Quant' e bella giovinezza 
Che si fugge tuttavia ! 
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia : 
Di doman non c'd certezza.^ 



CHAPTER IV 

MODENA 

After passing through impoverished Reggio and 
crossing the Secchia on a handsome stone bridge, one 
feels an almost physical satisfaction as one sights the 
towers of Modena, and under the vault of the Porta 
Sant' Agostino perceives the bright houses on either 

^ All my thoughts speak of love. 

2 How fair is youth which yet flees fast I Let him who will, 
enjoy. There is no certainty of to-morrow. 



92 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

side of the Via Emilia. Few cities look more inviting 
to the approaching traveller. Painted fa9ades, pleasant 
arcades, broad, clean streets animated by lively crowds 
give it the appearance characteristic of more important 
centres. True, the setting is sometimes a little 
theatrical, and we are conscious that we are nearing 
Bologna ; but on the whole, it is just the agreeable 
aspect and atmosphere I remember. The happy 
impression is enhanced, on this occasion, by the ease 
of mind of a traveller who knows exactly what he wants 
to see again, and who, in the intervals of his pre- 
determined visits, is free to idle as he pleases, amusing 
himself with the thousand picturesque details of Italian 
streets. This is one of the subtlest delights of a 
return to a city rich in masterpieces ; we have friends 
among them who perhaps make us unjust to the rest, 
and it is delicious to know beforehand how they will 
receive us. 

Modena has always been somewhat neglected by 
tourists, who rarely speak of it, or mention it only as 
a halting-place on their travels. If President de Brosses 
was pleased by it, it was because he arrived in the middle 
of the Carnival. It must indeed have been lively enough 
at the Court of the Duke and Duchess of Modena in 
those days, and the good Burgundian turned his back 
regretfully on the town where he had met a compatriot, 
" Mademoiselle Grognet, formerly a dancer at the 
Opera Comique and the favourite of Mademoiselle 
Salle, now the first dancer of the Duchy, and high in 
the good graces of certain ladies of the city." 

For those, who, like myseK, are in search of the best 
only in each of these Italian towns, Modena is easily 
summed up : there is a very fine Cathedral, and a school 
of terra-cotta sculpture. Its picture gallery contains 
works of importance to students of the various Emilian 



MODENA CATHEDRAL 93 

Schools, whose numerous painters are very little known, 
and we find here a fresh example of that happy de- 
centraUsation which made each city an art centre ; 
but I pass the door of the Museum without regret on 
these fine mornings. It is much pleasanter to go and 
dream upon the old ramparts which, as at Parma, 
surround the city with a girdle of leafy shade, whence 
one sees the dark outline of the Apennines gradually 
blurred by a blue mist as the heat increases. 

The external decorations of Modena Cathedral are 
among the richest and most complete that any of the 
Lombardo-Romanesque churches can boast. They are 
not confined to the fa9ade, but are continued on the 
sides. A graceful gallery with dehcate triple columns 
runs all round the church, enframed in larger arches. 
The various doors open under vaults upheld in the 
customary fashion by lions ; one of them is perhaps 
the earliest example of those Lombard doors which 
were transformed into porches. Before this, as in the 
old churches of Pavia for instance, the doors did not 
project ; here, on the contrary, an archivolt with two 
bas-rehefs representing monsters overhangs the bay. 
Several other sculptures complete the decoration ; 
they reproduce scenes of the Book of Genesis, from the 
birth of Adam to Noah, and we are fortunate enough 
to be able to decipher the signature of the artist with 
the date 1099 on a scroll held by the prophets Enoch 
and Elijah. He was Wiligelmus or GugHelmo, the 
artist who worked at San Zeno, Verona. As at Borgo 
San Donnino, French influences are apparent in this 
sculpture ; I need but instance the door near the 
Campanile, with the two episodes from the history of 
Renart on the lintel, and the knight representing Arthur 
of Brittany on the architrave. 

The interior of the church is unfortunately by no 



94 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

means equal to the exterior ; it has been spoilt by 
restorations. I enter only to go down into the crypt, 
guarded by lions and dwarfs, to see Guido Mazzoni's 
Adoration. My memory did not play me false ; it 
is a realistic work, the harsh naturalism and violence 
of which offend the eye. A nun and St. Joseph are 
kneeUng before the Virgin ; an ugly, ill-clad servant 
with torn sleeves bends forward. The figures bear 
little relation one to the other, and are somewhat 
ridiculous on the whole. This group, however, is not 
the best work of Modanino ; and one must go to San 
Giovanni Decollato to get a truer idea of the sculptor. 
Here, in the simple rotunda that opens on the Via 
Emilia is the Pietcij his masterpiece. The group is 
much more important than the Adoration in the 
Cathedral. In the foreground Christ is lying, not on 
His Mother's breast, as critics, repeating Burckhardt's 
inaccurate description, assert, but on the ground. The 
seven persons who mourn for Him really take part 
in the action ; the general effect is most striking. The 
expression of grief, very skilfully differentiated, achieves 
real pathos, especially in the face of the Virgin where 
it has a dramatic intensity. No doubt there are vul- 
garities and evidences of bad taste in this group ; but 
it would be unjust to pass it over altogether, or dismiss 
it with a shrug of the shoulders. 

Neither would it be just to treat BegareUi, as so many 
have done, with disdainful silence. True, he was 
incapable of setting up a single torso or modelling a 
figure apart from a common action ; he started from a 
false principle when he attempted to model in clay 
pictures which had to be placed in special niches and 
looked at from a fixed point like a painting. But 
granting this, it cannot be denied that he had the 
great gifts of composition, truth, and vitality. It is, 



BEGARELLI 95 

of course, absurd to compare him to Sansoviiio, or to 
take Michelangelo's exclamation too literally. If, as 
Vasari tells us, he cried when he saw the works of the 
Modenese : " Woe to the statues of antiquity, if this 
clay should become marble ! " it was no doubt because 
he saw in these realistic essays a happy reaction against 
the growing insipidity of Florentine and Roman 
idealism. 

Modena owns many works by the most famous of 
her sons ; to my mind, the best are The Descent from 
the Cross in San Francesco, and the Pieta in San Pietro. 
In the first, there are thirteen life-size figures : above, 
four persons standing on ladders lower the corpse of the 
crucified Saviour ; at the sides four Saints contemplate 
the tragic scene ; the principal group in the centre, 
the swooning Virgin supported by three women, is very 
moving. Although the actors in the sacred drama 
are all treated with a noble gravity and vigour, the 
general effect is not very harmonious, and I prefer the 
Pieta in San Pietro, which contains but four figures : 
Nicodemus raising the body of Christ and the kneeling 
Virgin leaning upon S. Johii. As it was the artist's 
ambition to produce a pathetic picture, it must be 
allowed that he was entirely successful. The work has 
simplicity and grandeur ; we even recognise a veritable 
emotion. But for faults of taste in the fullness and 
flutter of the draperies, we might admire unreservedly, 
though I think Burckhardt goes too far when he declares 
that " this group attains the serene heights of the 
masterpieces of the sixteenth century." 

My chief quarrel with Mazzoni and Begarelli is that 
they falsified the principles of sculpture and thus opened 
the road to every aberration. They were to some 
extent the precursors and the creators of the art that 
flourishes in the shops around Saint Sulpice. How 



96 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

can I judge the masters of Modena impartially, when 
I remember the Nativities, the Crucifixions, the 
Adorations, all the abominations in terra-cotta, wax 
and papier-mache that disfigure our churches ? 



CHAPTER V 

BOLOGNA 

What strikes me most each time I revisit Bologna 
is the effort the city is making to become an important 
centre. Its great ambition is to equal Florence, its 
neighbour and rival. Admirably situated at the 
intersection of the great railway systems of the penin- 
sula, it might aspire to become the capital of Italy, if 
the choice of a capital were determined solely by eco- 
nomic considerations. In any case, it is determined not 
to remain merely " learned Bologna," and were it to 
issue a new coinage, it is unlikely that it would be 
content with its old device : Bologna docet. In spite of 
its rapid growth, its streets are often melancholy and 
empty, save in the vicinity of the picturesque Piazza 
Vittorio Emanuele, with its girdle of fine buildings, 
and of the Piazza del Nettuno with the fountain by 
Giovanni da Bologna, that Frenchman whose works 
no less than his name often cause him to be taken for an 
Italian. The special charm of the town lies in the fact 
that its activities are displayed in the setting where 
they have developed ; it has avoided levellings and 
straight lines ; some of its roads describe veritable curves. 
Very little has been demolished, merely a few houses 



FASHION IN BOLOGNA 97 

to open up the central squares and arteries. Nearly 
all the streets have preserved their irregular arcades 
and their unexpected aspects ; there is infinite variety 
in the amusing caprice of these arcades, under the shelter 
of which it is possible to explore nearly the whole of 
the town. 

A further impression we get from Bologna is that 
everything there is done for effect. The majority of 
the houses look like palaces, with sumptuous entrances, 
colonnades, inner courts, terraces and galleries. The 
fagades are intended to impress. And in no Italian 
town is more attention paid to dress. The young 
civilians and officers who saunter for hours together 
in the Piazza del Nettuno have bestowed the most 
elaborate care on their toilets, not always escaping a 
certain touch of bad taste. The elegance of the 
Bolognese ladies charmed President de Brosses. " They 
dress in the French fashion," he says, " and better than 
anywhere else. Every day big dolls are sent to them, 
dressed from head to foot in the latest fashion, and they 
wear no trinkets that do not come from Paris.*' The 
cafes are more numerous than in any Italian town, 
and are situated even in the most frequented 
thoroughfares. The restaurants and the hairdressers' 
shops are open to the street ; huge mirrors enable their 
customers to eat and shave in pub ic as it were. The 
Bolognese are the true children of their painting, and 
their outer life is akin to the canvases in their museums. 

I did not intend to go to the Accademia this year, 
remembering the many times I had come out weary 
and dissatisfied. However, I wanted to ask myself in 
the presence of the works themselves, why their authors 
had so long ranked with the greatest artists of the world. 
Why, above all, the School of Bologna, hitherto obscure 
and almost non-existent, suddenly took the first place 

H 



98 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

at the close of the sixteenth century ? This has been 
very well explained in a recent article in the Revue des 
Deux Mondes by M. Marcel Reymond. He shows the 
necessity that had arisen for a renewal of religious art, 
and the inability of the other schools to initiate this 
revival. Bologna, untouched alike by the Florentine 
Renaissance and Venetian sensuality, near enough to 
Milan and to Parma to receive the great traditions of 
Leonardo and Correggio, was the learned and religious 
centre required for the establishment of the new logical 
art in which the form was to be the faithful servant of 
the idea, and expression was to be subordinated to 
conception. 

The three Carracci evolved the theory which was at 
east ingenious, that in order to create a model school, 
it was only necessary to take the best elements from each 
of the others. Agostino, in an artless poem, has left 
us a receipt for the making of a good picture. It will 
suffice to give it " the drawing of the Romans, the move- 
ment and shadows of the Venetians, the fine colour of 
the Lombard painters, the sublimity of Michelangelo, 
the truth of Titian, the pure taste of Correggio, the 
harmony of Raphael, the solid proportions of Pellegrino, 
the invention of the learned Primaticcio, and a little 
of Parmigiano's grace." To this receipt we owe the 
works I have just been looking at again. Well, I can 
understand the admiration felt for them at the time 
when they were painted, for they were in perfect harmony 
with a certain phase of thought and feeling. I can 
understand too why they should still retain the favour 
of Catholics and of all those who look for edification or 
pathos in pictures ; but what I cannot understand is 
why they should so long have been accepted as the 
very consummation of art. 

It must not be supposed that I am in danger of going 



SCHOOL OF BOLOGNA 99 

to the other extreme. I recognise the great technical 
mastery displayed in many of these canvases ; it is 
natural enough that a painter should praise the handling 
and seek to learn something from it. But what surprises 
me more and more is the fact that refined and subtle 
spirits, men of taste, writers — and these some of the 
most illustrious — should also have been enraptured by 
these declamatory works painted not from the heart 
but from the brain. Without going back to De Brosses 
who exhausts all the resources of his style to express 
his admiration, I need only open Stendhal to learn that 
Guercino is sublime and that Annibale Carracci is equal 
to Raphael. " The School of Bologna," he says in his 
History of Painting in Italy ^ *' which came later, was to 
imitate all the great painters successfully, and Guido 
Reni may be said to have carried beauty to the sub- 
limest heights ever attained by man." More recently 
M. Maurice Barres has not hesitated " to prefer to the 
Primitives and even to the painters of the first half of 
the fifteenth century Guido, Domenichino, Guercino, 
the Carracci and their rivals, who have given us such 
rich and powerful analyses of passion." How can this 
wonderful writer, susceptible as he is to beauty, prefer 
the art of the Bolognese to the art of the fifteenth 
century (that radiant and adorable Quattrocento, when 
the fervid, ingenuous souls of artists turned so eagerly 
and enquiringly to Nature), to those works of freshness 
and sincerity in which truth and fancy, the real and 
the ideal are so artlessly intermingled ; that springtide 
of beauty, the touching candour of which breathes a 
perfume as of eternal youth. Compared with these 
old masters who give themselves up so simply to their 
inspiration, allow their hearts to speak, and so achieve 
real eloquence, the Bolognese seem to me amazingly 
clever orators, erudite and sympathetic, who substitute 

H 2 



100 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

science for emotion, and only manage to construct 
fine phrases, empty and sonorous. Their works are 
pretentiously dramatic. True, they accumulate a vast 
number of things on a canvas and the action appears 
intense ; but on closer examination, we see it is a 
factitious life, due to studio formulas. And yet these 
works were the delight of the eighteenth century, that 
age of taste and intelligence. There where I see nothing 
but skill and declamation, the subtlest of mankind 
admired fire and passion. To the artists of those days 
Bologna was a capital of art no less than Rome ; the 
most delightful of our own masters learned their craft 
there. It is true that the seventeenth century had 
demolished many of the masterpieces of the Primitives, 
and exalted the Baroque and Jesuit styles. We 
must not be too absolute. > In works of art there is 
much that we add ourselves, and we love them in 
proportion to the manner in which they respond to our 
sentiments, our conceptions, our personal ideals. We 
men of letters see beauty in the things that move us. 
We can only offer subjective criticism — not the worst 
kind of criticism, perhaps. We do not care for a 
picture because of the dijficulties overcome or the skill 
displayed by the painter, but because it stirs our 
emotions. And may the history of the Bolognese 
always remind us that it is dangerous to judge for 
eternity ! 

The same thoughts occur to me before the admirable 
doorway of San Petronio. Only of late years has justice 
been done to Jacopo della Quercia, and even now he 
does not enjoy the fame which rightly belongs to one 
of the greatest of Italian sculptors. Nowhere can we 
better appreciate the genius of the Sienese master in 
all its power than here. It is strange indeed that 
Bologna, which always showed such a strong affection 




iz; 
o 
o 

^^ 
O 



o 



SAN PETRONIO 101 

for sculpture — a tendency natural enough in a city so 
careful of scenic effect — had no good native sculptors 
and was obliged to rely on its more skilful neighbours 
for the decoration of buildings and open spaces. Thus 
it invited Niccolo Pisano, the Venetians, Dalle Maxegne 
and Lanframi, Andrea da Fiesole, the Florentine 
Tribolo, AKonso Lombard! of Ferrara, Jean Bologne 
of Douai and many others to work within its 
walls. 

When Bologna started to build San Petronio, it hoped 
to raise a cathedral which would rival the Duomo of 
Florence and be one of the largest churches in the world. 
Unfortunately only the nave was completed. The 
choir and transepts were abandoned, faith and more 
especially money having failed. But the conception 
has given a special majesty to this great church 
which will never be finished. The Bolognese, desir- 
ing a sumptuous fa9ade, applied to Jacopo della 
Querela, whose Fonte Gaja had just made him famous. 
It was in 1425 that the contract between the Legate of 
Pope Martin V. and the Sienese artist was approved. 
In it the decoration of the central door of San Petronio 
was entrusted to Della Querela, and the payment fixed 
at 3,600 florins. Numerous historians have related the 
details of this enterprise which lasted two years ; at 
the death of the sculptor in 1438, it was not quite 
finished, and became a subject of contention. But 
we need not concern ourselves overmuch with the story, 
which Perkins called without undue exaggeration 
the tragedy of the door. What matters it whether the 
delays were due to Jacopo 's natural slowness, to his 
neglect, or to other causes ? Let us be content to 
contemplate the work. 

The sculptures of this porch are almost entirely by the 
hand of Jacopo. On the pilasters there are ten bas- 



102 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

reliefs, representing scenes of Old Testament history ; 
on the architrave five bas-reliefs reproducing episodes 
of the life of Christ ; above this lintel, three statues : 
the Virgin, S. Ambrose, and S. Petronius bearing a 
model of the church. There are further on the inner 
face of the uprights, and on the arch over the door, 
thirty-three half-length figures of prophets ; but these 
medallions, of minor importance, are probably not all 
by the master. His authorship of the majority, how- 
ever, can hardly be disputed, in view of the powerful 
modelling of some of the heads and hands. As to the 
fifteen bas-reliefs, they are so many masterpieces, 
which make the strongest impression on the spectator. 
It is impossible to forget the Birth of Adam, for instance, 
in which the first man wakes to life with a truly startling 
gesture of amazement, and the Creation of Eve, whose 
charming face already expresses the most timid curiosity. 
These two reliefs were the admiration of Michelangelo, 
who sought inspiration from them while magnifying 
them by his own genius. And was it not a great honour 
for Jacopo to have suggested to the master of the 
Sistine Chapel that wonderful Birth of Adam in which 
God, bending from the clouds, bestows life and in- 
telligence on His creature by touching him with His 
finger ? The most beautiful of the reliefs on the archi- 
trave is that of the Flight into Egypt. Jacopo 's 
Virgins have always a poignant expression ; here it is 
extraordinary. Bending over the Babe as if to protect 
Him already against invisible evils, Mary seems to bear 
on her anxious face all the marvellous and tragic destiny 
of her divine Son. Jacopo is indeed a man apart in 
his century, and above aU, apart from the Florentines. 
He is not a Renaissance artist at all, but a master of 
the transition, who links the sculptors of the pulpits 
at Siena and Pisa to the sculptor of the tombs of the 



JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA 103 

Medici. He is in a sense the last of the Gothic artists. 
He is intent on grand lines, on ample, soberly-treated 
form, rather than on the graceful precision and realisn^i 
of the Quattrocento. He neglects detail and acces- 
sories ; he seeks only to render the movement of soul 
and body ; he is eager to express life in all its power 
and T^ariety. Was not his art that which first revealed 
itself in the ingenuous works of the Pisan masters, and 
blossomed forth a century later in the reasoned art of 
Michelangelo ? 

Like Correggio, Jacopo della Querela was an isolated 
figure. He may be said to have had neither master 
nor pupil. He grew up at Siena, where he learned 
his craft by stud3dng the pulpit of Niccolo Pisano and 
the Gothic artists who were working at the building 
of the Duomo ; it was to them that he owed his occasion- 
ally archaic style, the fullness of his draperies, the heavi- 
ness of his stuffs and folds. At Florence he seems to 
have been attracted chiefly by Giotto and Andrea 
Pisano, if we may judge by some of the bas-reliefs of 
San Petronio, which resemble those of the famous 
Campanile in arrangement. He sent in an Abraham's 
Sacrifice to the competition for the Baptistery doors 
which has not come down to us, but which he prob- 
ably used for one of the sculptures of San Petronio. 
Vasari tells us that the figures of this composition were 
considered good, but inelegant : non avevano finezza. 
And it is obvious that Jacopo 's robust art must have 
seemed harsh to the subtle and refined Florentines. 

The Sienese master has had no more able interpreter 
than M. Marcel Reymond. I think he exaggerates a 
little when he declares that Jacopo 's works dominate 
Italian art, that they rank with those of Phidias, and 
that all Ghiberti's grace is eclipsed by his grandeur ; 
but it is evident enough that they are the only achieve- 



104 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

ments of the fifteenth century which foreshadow the 
mighty conceptions of Michelangelo. 

Bologna has preserved other works by Jacopo della 
Quercia : two bas-reliefs in the Museum, and at San 
Giacomo Maggiore the tomb of the Jurisconsult, 
Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio. The latter is truly 
representative both of the art of statuary and of the 
University town which bestowed sumptuous tombs 
on its professors. On the front of the sarcophagus we 
see the master surrounded by pupils, who, seated at their 
desks, receive his instruction attentively ; the dead 
man is represented again above, lying at full length 
on an inclined plane, his head and feet resting on huge 
folios. Jacopo 's work is admirably composed and very 
stately in effect. The face of the recumbent figure is 
full of nobility. Tombs are often the monuments in 
which sculptors put the best of themselves, and this 
because we cannot think of death without gravity and 
emotion. 

Among the memories we bring back from our travels, 
the strongest are often those connected with this idea. 
I cannot think of the delights of the Italian lakes with- 
out recalling the hour I spent in a little burial ground 
at the edge of the sparkling waters. And so, too, in our 
visions of art, those which speak to us of death leave 
the most durable impressions. The King of Terrors 
has always been the great inspirer of artists. 



CHAPTER VI 

FAENZA AND CESENA 

This part of the Via Emilia is the most interesting 
of all, from the picturesque point of view. To the 
right the traveller skirts the last spurs of the Apennines 
almost continuously, and can distinguish the villages 
nestling in the folds of their slopes, clustered round 
slender campaniles. Behind Bologna, above the roofs of 
the town, rise the heights of the Monte della Guardia and 
the Madonna di San Luca, whence one surveys a magnifi- 
cent panorama, extending in clear weather from the 
Alps to the Adriatic. As one advances on the road, 
there is a series of fine views into each of the gorges 
through which the torrents descend, some to the Reno, 
the others straight to the sea. To the left, on the other 
hand, is Romagna, a low, damp region abounding in 
marshes, an interminable plain which extends as far 
as the eye can reach, to the lagoons we divine on the 
horizon. Dante indicated its boundaries accurately 
enough when he said that it stretched 

Tra il Po, il monte e la marina e il Reno.^ 

Although less fertile than the land on the other side 
of Bologna, the district is rich and well cultivated. 
Great white oxen, six, eight and even ten pairs yoked 
together, plough up the fat soil. And ever, as if to give 
a festal aspect to the famous highway, the vines hang 
their garlands from one pioppo to the other. The heavy 
clusters of berries are swollen to the point of bursting. 
We are nearing the vintage time, that autumn equinox 
which d'Annunzio declares to be the most enchanting 

1 Between the Po, the mountain and sea, and the Reno. 

105 



106 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

season of the year, because it exhales a sort of aerial 
intoxication emanating from the ripe grapes. 

And now I suddenly recognise an inn, a rustic osteria, 
where I halted once before one summer day in I forget 
what year. Instead of waiting for the meal that will 
be ready for me at Faenza, in a low, airless room, I 
decide to enjoy some frugal fare with a bottle of cool 
lainbrusco, that Emilian wine which has the savour 
of our French sapling vines. There are times when the 
blood of my peasant forbears throbs strongly in my 
veins, and I feel the need of living nearer to Nature. 
When I have finished my meal> I am reluctant to start 
again at once, under the burning sunshine that is scorch- 
ing the road white. Through the arches of the pergola, 
I see the rich landscape drowsing in the mid-day heat. 
Two cypresses rise high into the air, and stand out 
sharply against the sky ; their tall heads rustle sonor- 
ously with a sound that recalls a verse of Theocritus. 
An oleander completes the eclogue. Bees fly past with 
a musical murmur. And half asleep, I see myself 
many years ago gazing upon this same scene. I 
remember distinctly how I watched the tops of these 
cypresses swaying against the sky. Then, suddenly, 
as in a magic dream, everything about me disappears 
under the spell of a mirage akin to that fata morgana 
which appears on the coasts of Reggio on certain brilliant 
evenings, and transports the dazzled sailors to unreal 
shores. I am standing again on the sunburnt terrace 
whence my first childish dreams took flight. And I 
feel the same agitation I used to feel, an inexplicable 
agitation, a kind of panic terror born of the motionless 
brightness of noon, the enveloping silence, the complete 
torpor of things. . . . 

But it is getting late ; it is time to start. The long 
wid© ribbon of the Via Emilia runs in a straight line 



FAENZA 107 

through towns of marwitl aspect : Castel San Pietro, 
Imola girdled with walls, dominated by its massive 
Rocca, and Castel Bolognese, a big borough also sur- 
rounded by well preserved ramparts with their comer 
towers and circular bastions, an ancient fortress where, 
it is said, Piccinino vanquished Gattamelata. 

And here is Faenza, its central square bordered with 
fine arcades and handsome buildings, among them the 
Cathedral which vaguely suggests a San Petronio on 
a small scale. In the Museum I renew my acquaintance 
with the charming little bust of S. John, which Burck- 
hardt attributes to Donatello, but which is probably 
the work of Rossellino or Desiderio da Settignano, 
and the wooden S. Jerome which, on the other hand, is 
perhaps by Donatello. A rich collection of pottery 
recalls the importance of the earlier ceramists of the 
town ; at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of 
the sixteenth century they were highly esteemed. The 
neighbouring workshops of Cesena, Forli, Ferrara and 
Rimini competed with them in vain ; a decree dated 
1532, found in the archives of Ravenna, forbids the 
importation and sale of the products of Faenza except 
on market-days. There are a few modern factories 
which are trying to revive the industry. 

Scarcely have we ^passed the suburbs of Faenza 
when the high towers of Forli appear on the horizon. 
We begin to meet on the road those little painted 
carts which are to be found in all the regions near the 
Adriatic. The hemp fields become more numerous, 
and the air is heavy with their nauseous stench. 

At Forli, the Via Emilia skirts the Piazza Maggiore 
— transformed like so many others, into the Piazza 
Vittorio Emanuele — an imposing space, with its monu- 
mental facades, its town-hall, the church of San 
Mercuriale and a Campanile of Venetian aspect, Forli 



108 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

was the birth place of the excellent pamter Melozzo ; 
all we shall see in the Museum is his Pestapepe^ an 
apothecary's sign, representing an apprentice pounding 
a drug in a mortar. 

On leaving the town the road is bordered for several 
miles by a double row of poplars, as far as the river 
Ronco, now completely dried up. The torrents, much 
shorter here, flow directly to the Adriatic, and are 
more formidable than those we have left behind. 
In the rainy season, and when the snows are melting, 
they SAvell in a few hours to raging floods, bearing 
down all before them. Man has so far been unable to 
tame them. A great scheme has been outlined for the 
construction of a vast canal at the foot of the Apennines, 
the whole length of the chain, to receive the waters 
as they reach the plain and carry them off to the sea ; 
but such an enterprise would present the most serious 
difficulties and entail an immense outlay. A channel 
of enormous width and depth would be required to 
contain the volume of water which sometimes issues 
from all the gorges at the same time. On the other 
hand, water is so scarce in the summer that it has to 
be brought in water-carts and sold by the quart. 

And the torrents have not been uniformly destructive ; 
with the earth they brought down from the Apennines, 
they gradually filled up the marshes which formerly 
covered a large part of Romagna. They were the most 
active agents in the levelling and fertilisation undertaken 
by the Romans, who here again have left us evidences 
of their genius. When we look at the fields to the 
left of the road on leaving Faenza, we see that the paths 
and ditches which divide them are equidistant and 
parallel, perpendicularly to the Via Emilia. The 
landscape forms a gigantic chess-board, the squares of 
which, arranged in regular rectangles, corresponded 



PLAINS NEAR RIMINI 109 

to the allotments of the Roman assessors. This arrange- 
ment, noticeable in some places before Bologna, is more 
evident between Imola and Forli, excppt in the neigh- 
bourhood of the watercourses, where it is effaced by 
constant inundation and erosion. It was Marcus 
iEmilius Scaurus who in the year 115 B.C. began the 
reclamation of this plain, and ordered the digging of 
the ditches which were to drain the water off into the 
Po or the Adriatic. Then, having expropriated and 
expelled the Gauls, the Romans divided up the land 
into equal portions which they gave over to veterans 
for drainage and cultivation ; we read in Livy that these 
maremme were measured, and divided among the 
colonists. This network of roads and canals is two 
thousand years old. It is curious to see that the 
Imperial assessment still obtains, and that Nature 
herself preserves the imprint and proclaims the continuity 
of Roman genius. These regular divisions cease in the 
north, following a sinuous line which corresponds to 
the shores of an ancient lake, the Padusa, a kind of 
lagoon, separated from the Adriatic only by a strip 
of sand ; the torrents have gradually filled it up. 
Thousands of acres, once merely reed-beds, are now 
rich wheat-fields. All these lowland districts snatched 
from the waters have a very distinctive character. 
This was the region described by Francesca when she 
spoke to Dante of her native place near the sea, " where 
the Po and its tributaries throw themselves into the 
sea in search of peace " : 

Siede la terra dove nata fui 

Su la marina dove '1 Po discende 

Per aver pace co' seguaci sui. 

It is a rich, watery, restless soil, a flat district, a kind 
of southern Flanders, entirely unlike the rest of Italy, 
the lines of which are in general so clear and precise. 



110 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

A few lofty parasol pines in the distance herald the 
Pineta, and the approach to Ravenna, the ancient city 
of the Exarchs, now so remote from the world, that 
city in which, by one of the strange caprices of history, 
civilisation concentrated for a century, to leave it merely 
the custodian of tombs. It is comprehensible that 
Dante, old, weary and wretched, should have chosen 
this city, already moribund in his day, to die in ; here 
he was able to withdraw from human intercourse, 
encountering only Imperial ghosts among the deserted 
streets and funereal pines. 

To the right of the Via Emilia, however. Nature 
has remained smiling and varied. Near ForlimpopoU 
a series of cheerful hiU-side draped with vines have an 
almost Tuscan grace. On one of them, in a delightful 
position at the foot of the Monte dei Cappuccini, stands 
the village of Bertinoro, a former property of the 
Malatestas, the vineyards of which were already famous 
in their times. Further on, at the foot of a spur of the 
Apennines, we come to Cesena. The town, formerly 
on the mountain-top, has gradually descended into 
the valley, but in a haphazard fashion which gives it 
an irregular appearance of a very original kind. The 
site is pleasant with its crown of green hills domi- 
nated, one by a convent, the other by the ruins of 
a fortress. A little way off is Santa Maria del Monte, 
a Renaissance church attributed to Bramante. By 
virtue of a fine bridge over the Savio, and a sixteenth 
century fountain, Cesena is sometimes called the town 
del monte, del ponte e delfonte (of the mountain, the bridge 
and the fountain). It is almost unknown to tourists, 
and yet it can oJffer them, in addition to its picturesque 
attractions, one of the most charming libraries in 
Italy. Few Renaissance buildings were more intelli- 
gently planned than this palace, built in 1452 by Matteo 



THE RUBICON 111 

Nuzio, for Malateata Novello, the brother of the tyrant 
of Rimini. It comprises several rooms containing 
precious books and manuscripts, some of which were 
used for the famous editions of the classics printed by 
the Venetian, Aldus Manutius. The great hall, some 
120 feet long, is a gallery of three aisles, resting on 
graceful fluted columns of white Codruzzo marble. 
The happy arrangement of the building was so novel 
at the time of its inception that Michelangelo was 
inspired by it in several details of his Medici Library. 
After leaving Cesena we cross a series of little streams 
each of which claims the distinction of being the original 
Rubicon. The Pisciatello, which is the first we come 
to, the Fiumicino, which bathes verdant Savignano 
surrounded by tall poplars, the Uso which reflects the 
castle of Sant' Arcangelo, compete, and probably will 
always compete for the honour. Each of the neigh- 
bouring cities invokes Strabo, Pliny, the geographers of 
antiquity or of the Middle Ages in support of its 
pretensions. In all probability the riddle will never 
be solved. But what does it matter ? There are the 
towers of Rimini ! and here the blue line of the Adriatic 
and the purple and yellow sails swelled by winds from 
the East. 



CHAPTER VII 

RIMINI 



Rimini : for how many of us these musical syllables 
are associated only with a tragic love story and a verse 
in an immortal poem ! Few episodes have been more 



112 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

popular and few have inspired more artists than that 
of the hapless passion of Paolo and Francesca. This 
is due to Dante's pathetic narrative and also to the 
fact that the brief scene recorded by the poet is a most 
moving drama of love and death. What lovers would 
not pity and envy those who were united in the grave 
by the same dagger ? Dante himself is indulgent to 
the guilty pair, and desires pardon for them ; he almost 
excuses them, laying the blame on destiny, and invoking 
the triumphant instinct which attracts one sex to the 
other. What other story teaches so effectively that 
love is the first aim of life and the surest claim to 
immortality in the minds of men ? We learn the same 
lesson from the church of San Francesco, dedicated by 
Sigismondo Malatesta to Isotta, who was originally his 
mistress, and whom he married after repudiating his 
first wife, the daughter of a Count of Carmagnola, 
poisoning the second, Ginevra d'Este, and strangling 
the third, Polyxena, the natural daughter of one of the 
Sforzas. 

Though we can understand the passion of Paolo 
for Francesca, whom we may reasonably suppose to 
have been a desirable creature, we are at a loss to account 
for the fierce Malatesta's passion for Isotta degli Atti, 
the daughter of a citizen of Rimini. All extant portraits 
of her, the medals of Matteo da Pasti and Pisanello, 
the statue of the Archangel Michael to which Ciufiagni 
gave her features, the marble bust in the Campo Santo 
at Pisa represent her as entirely lacking in grace and 
beauty. She must have been intelligent and cultivated ; 
but perhaps she held Sigismondo captive simply by the 
tenderness, at once calm and voluptuous, of a woman 
who knows all the violence and all the lassitude of man's 
desire. Moreover, how should we be able to read the 
complex souls of those tyrants who recoiled at no crime, 



SIGISMONDO JVIALATESTA 113 

and yet who sometimes showed the. most exquisite 
delicacy and the most refined taste ? By one of the 
frequent anomalies of human nature, the most cruel 
of them were also the most enlightened. The verdict 
of history need not affect our admiration for them ; 
they ordered splendid monuments and were incom- 
parable patrons of art and artists. Among them there 
is no more striking figure than that of Sigismondo 
Pandolfo Malatesta who 

Mit a sang la Romagne et la Marche et le Golfe, 
Batit un temple, fit 1' amour et le chanta.^ 

These two lines of a famous sonnet sum up very happily 
in one of those brief phrases dear to the author of the 
Trophies, the Condottiere who conceived the strange 
idea of raising a temple to his mistress, or rather, of 
transforming a Franciscan church into a heathen temple. 
No trace, indeed, has been left therein of the chaste 
idyl of S. Francis and "Madame Poverty." We might 
search in vain for a religious inscription, a Christian 
image, a sacred symbol ; we find on every side antique 
statues, ephebi, Greek divinities, garlands, wreaths of 
fruit and flowers ; the arms of Malatesta : the elephant 
and the rose ; and above all, Isotta's cipher interlaced 
with his own. 

Sigismondo chose L. B. Alberti as his architect. 
And Alberti had to solve the same problem which was 
to present itself a century later to Palladio in the basilica 
of Vicenza : the utilisation of an old building and its 
transformation into a new monument. Less fortunate 
than Palladio, Alberti never saw the completion of his 
conception : a great building with a dome, of which 
we get an idea from a letter in which he speaks of a 

^ Who drenched Romagna and the Marches and the Gulf with 
blood, built a temple, made love and sang it. 

I 



114 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

cupola like that of Santa Maria dei Fiori, and from the 
reverse of a medal which Sigismondo caused to be struck 
in 1450, on the occasion of his jubilee. 

Alberti encased the Gothic church in a kind of shell 
of marble, and respecting the interior chapels, preserved 
the Gothic bays ; but on the outside he enclosed them 
in round headed arcades, forming so many niches, the 
stylobates of which served as bases for the tombs of the 
poets and learned men pensioned by Malatesta. As 
he was fettered by no restrictions in the fayade, he 
gave free rein to his imagination here, and achieved a 
masterpiece. It has the appearance of a triumphal 
arch : the pretext for the work was, in fact, the cele- 
bration of the victory gained by Sigismondo as General 
of the Florentines over Alfonso of Aragon, as we learn 
from an inscription on one of the pilasters. This 
fagade, the first produced by the Italian Renaissance, 
is marvellously effective, though it is unfinished, and 
Still shows the gable of the old Gothic building ; the 
effect is due entirely to the simplicity and the graceful 
proportions of the architectural mass. A new art came 
to birth with L. B. Alberti. 

There is no more interesting figure than that of this 
Italian. Athlete, savant, astronomer, inventor of scien- 
tific instruments, man of letters, jurist, a Latinist of 
such parts that he wrote plays which were long ascribed 
to Plautus, musician, sculptor, and architect, he was a 
kind of universal genius, a precursor of Leonardo da 
Vinci. Politian, despairing of enumerating all his 
attainments, declared that it were wiser to be silent 
altogether concerning him than to risk saying too 
little : tacere satius puto quam pauca dicer e. He has 
written on innumerable subjects, and we might find 
in his works the germs of many modern discoveries. 
We also read in them formulas which might have been 



L. B. ALBERTI 115 

wiitten by a contemporary : "I appeal not only to 
artists but to all minds eager for instruction." . . . 
" By means of study and of art, we must try to under- 
stand and express life." . . . " It is not enough to render 
things faithfully, we must learn to bring out their 
beauty." . . . When he defines the mission of the 
artist, he recommends him not to isolate himself, but 
to seek the society of orators and poets in order to find 
fresh sources of inspiration in their company. He 
was the first to draw an analogy between music and 
architecture and he compared rhythms, forms and sounds 
very judiciously. The fascination antique monu- 
ments had for him probably developed his bent 
towards architecture. That which interested him 
above all was creation, the plan. He confided the 
execution of his designs to others. Thus for the temple 
at Rimini he applied to the celebrated medallist, Matteo 
da Pasti ; but we must not therefore conclude that he 
was a roving dilettante who tried his hand at every- 
thing more or less. He was a Humanist in all the beauty 
and all the force of the term. He went back to the 
sources of antique wisdom. He demanded of art and 
science the means for controlling his passions ; he 
sought in them consolation for the woes of life. Bom 
in exile in Florence, he kept himself always above 
pettinesses, jealousies, and hatreds. Nothing could be 
more admirable in its sovereign sense of justice and 
humanity than a dissertation on law which he wrote 
one day at Bologna in a few hours. And how full of 
wisdom is the formula with which he concludes one of 
his works : " Virtue is a beautiful thing ; kindness is 
a beautiful thing." 

His work at Rimini may be said to inaugurate the 
Renaissance. Such a movement is not, of course, 
spontaneous, and could not be initiated by any one 

I 2 



116 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

man. It was the outcome of an entire generation, 
and many generations prepared it. Long before the 
fifteenth century the ne^ tendencies were making 
themselves felt in all the domains of art and intellect. 
S. Francis of Assisi, Dante, Giotto, Giovanni Pisano 
were innovators who were the first to break the ancient 
moulds in which the thought of the Middle Ages had 
been cabined and confined. In architecture, BruneUesco 
was the first to free himself and begin the reformation ; 
the Pitti Palace and the cupola of Santa Maria dei 
Fiori were rising in Florence when in France men were 
still building Gothic cathedrals and private houses 
like that of Jacques Cceur. But it was with L. B. 
Alberti, a theorist rather than an architect, that the 
Renaissance first became conscious of itself and de- 
liberately broke with the tradition of the Middle Ages. 
He completed the movement and ensured its triumph 
by fixing the laws which were to govern it. No more 
pointed arches, dim vaults and darkness ! Life and 
light were to be its aims ; hence v/ide bays and large 
porticoes through which the sunshine could enter, and 
simple logical structures, suitable to the climate and to 
the needs of the times. 

The Roman column took the place of the Gothic 
pillar and the Classic Orders were reproduced with a 
just sense of their proportions ; thus for the fa9ade of 
San Francesco, Alberti found his inspiration directly 
and very ingeniously in the Arch of Augustus which 
he had before his eyes. Such were the new rules. The 
architects of the Renaissance had only to apply them, 
taking the temple at Rimini for their model. 

Alberti 's skiU. is no less happily applied in the interior ; 
he overlaid the brick of the Franciscan walls with marble, 
stucco and gilding. He called upon the tender and 
sensual Agostino di Duccio to scatter smiling images 



CORSO D'AUGUSTO 117 

everywhere, even on the tombs, and to write the love- 
poem in honour of Isotta. Unfortunately the decoration 
was not left entirely to Duccio ; many coarse and clumsy 
details betray the hands of other artisans, notably the 
somewhat heavy hand of Ciuffagni. 

But the daylight is fading, and as I must leave to- 
morrow, I want to finish my pilgrimage and explore 
the last section of the Via Emilia, which passes through 
Rimini. It enters the town after crossing the Marecchia 
(the Ariminus of the ancients) on a fine travertine 
bridge begun by Augustus and finished under Tiberius. 
Its five massive arches, the piers of which are slightly 
oblique in order to lessen the impact of the current, 
has resisted the onslaughts of the torrent for twenty 
centuries. This Marecchia, which to- day I could easily 
jump across, is often a tremendous river which breaks 
down its dykes, tears up the trees on its banks, and 
throws them against the pillars of the bridge, which it 
sometimes submerges. The Roman cement has so far 
held good in spite of its fury. 

The Via Emilia traverses Rimini under the name of 
the Corso d'Augusto. It skirts the Piazza Cavour, 
where there is an old fountain which dates, they say, 
from the time of Antoninus Pius, then the Piazza di 
Giulio Cesare, the ancient forum of the city, and ends 
at the triumphal arch which the Senate and the people 
erected in honour of Augustus, in the year 27 B.C. It 
is one of the imperial monuments with which both 
time and man have dealt tenderly. Built entirely of 
travertine, it is very simple in effect, at. once graceful 
and majestic. Two pilasters, in which fine Corinthian 
columns are imbedded, support an audacious arch some 
twenty-seven feet in span. It is decorated with two 
ox-heads, the emblem of the Roman colonies, and with 
four medallions representing Jupiter, Venus, Neptune 



118 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

and Mars, the protectors of the city. A quadriga with 
a chariot in which Augustus was seated crowned it 
originally, but this was destroyed during the struggle 
with the Goths and replaced eventually by the present 
disfiguring battlements. Each of the pillars adjoins 
the ramparts of the town, of which it was long the 
principal gate, the Porta Aurea, as it was called because 
of the inscription in letters of gilded bronze. On the 
other side of the arch the Via Flaminia begins, the road 
that led to Rome through the country of the Senones, 
Umbria, and the Sabine land, and entered the Eternal 
City after crossing the Tiber by the Milvius bridge. 

So I have come to the end of my road ! To-morrow 
I shall return to Venice, faithful to my annual rendezvous, 
the marriage of Autumn and the Adriatic. The journey 
which seemed such a long one in perspective has passed 
so quickly that one seems to have been watching a 
cinema show. In a few days I shall recross the Alps, 
my heart full of that sorrow in quitting Italy which 
depressed even Madame de Stael, and repeating in my 
turn the verse that rose to her lips as she mounted the 
winding road of Mont Cenis : 

Vegno di loco ove tornar desio.^ 

I had only visited Himini once before, a few years ago 
while waiting for a train, to see Alberti's temple which 
I had long wished to know. I was going towards Umbria 
and I remember a lovely twilight on the Adriatic, and 
a nocturnal arrival at Ancona. I can even fix the date ; 
it was in August, 1905, the day of an eclipse of the 
sun. I see myself again on the little square of San 
Francesco, reassuring a group of old women who 
trembled and lamented as the light was gradually 
extinguished. Five years already \ But what are 

^ I come from the spot whither I would f am return. 




Arch of Auogstus, Rimini. 



ADRIATIC FROM RIMINI 119 

five miserable years on this road, before this arch of 
Augustus, under which twenty centuries have passed ? 
Yet they count as something to us as long as, in Dante's 
beautiful phrase, we are still among the living of this 
life, which is but a race to death : 

. . . vivi 
Del viver ch'e' un correre alia morte. 

How swiftly the days pass on this Italian soil where 
all is joy and delight, especially when real youth is 
over, and we begin to look back. Just now I read 
again on Isotta's tomb the wise warning : Tempus 
loquendi, tempus tacendi (a time to speak and a time to 
keep silence). A day will come, is perhaps very near, 
when one can only be silent. 

Before night falls I want to see the Adriatic which 
has so often cradled my hopes and dreams. The 
fishing boats are returning two by two, like pairs of 
lovers, folding their shining sails. They disappear 
behind the mole, on which a light is kindled. The calm 
is so intense that we can almost hear our hearts beat. 
There is no sound but the almost imperceptible ripple 
of the waves on the soft sand. And now, unnoticed, 
night is upon us. One by one the moon, the planets, the 
stars light their lamps, all those luminaries of which 
we know nothing in our tall houses with their blinding 
lights, but which, when we are travelling seem to live 
with us and follow us amicably. A few lights quiver 
on the bank. The sharp tinkle of a piano comes from 
the big hotel, already almost deserted. A last boat 
returns to port, slipping silently over the water, like a 
cat on velvet paws. Ah ! September evening, sweet 
and mournful. . . . 



PART III 

THE MARCHES. UMBRIA 



CHAPTER I 

PERUGIA 

Returning and revisiting are often more delightful 
than discovery. The traveller who finds himself once 
more in a beloved city experiences the same pleasure 
as he who reads anew a fine book, noting on every page 
fresh grounds for love and admiration. There is nothing 
more fascinating than to halt from time to time in 
familiar places where one can wander at will, without 
having to consult a map or to follow the directions of 
a guide. In museums and churches, at the corner of 
a square or of a street, you know what work of art is 
your bourn, a bourn to which you make your way in 
joyous confidence, sure of a friendly reception. Whereas, 
when you arrive in a town for the first time, you are 
eager to see everything, to examine each masterpiece, 
to place it in its century and its school ; and this in- 
cessant mental labour is very exhausting, especially 
for a poor novelist taking a holiday, who, to quote 
Bourget, is neither an art-critic nor an archaeologist. 
But need he regret this ? He is, perhaps, in better 
case for the appreciation of beautiful things, and the 
reception of the deep or violent emotions they com- 
municate, than he who is encumbered by too heavy a 
weight of erudition. 

A year ago, when I arrived at Perugia, I felt as if I 
were entering an unknown city so great was the move- 

12S 



124 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

ment and agitation in the streets. M. Schneider, in 
his delightful book on Umbria, exaggerates a little 
perhaps, when he tells us that the city has remained 
" in almost Arcadian solitude," and is as " unfamiliar 
as it is beautiful." Nevertheless, my memories of 
Perugia were memories of a quiet town, dozing in the 
shelter of its ancient walls, and I found a lively, feverish 
and crowded city. By a curious coincidence the jubilee 
festival of the famous Madonna della Grazia — and an 
Italian festival entails concerts, illuminations and 
fireworks — was taking place at the same time as the 
Modugno lawsuit, which was convulsing Italy. I 
arrived on the very day when one of the leaders of the 
defence, the famous barrister Bianchi, had been 
murdered, though his violent death had no relation 
whatever to the case in which he was engaged. I 
had stepped into the very centre of the tragedy. In 
spite of the strong emotions which were agitating the 
crowd, I was struck by its dignity and reticence. The 
Umbrian, like his neighbour the Tuscan, is very anxious 
not to appear ridiculous ; thoughtful and serious, he 
is less heavy than the Lombard, but less exuberant 
than the Roman or the Neapolitan. The women, too, 
are graceful and elegantly dressed ; in olden days this 
was made a reproach to them ; perhaps it was by no 
mere chance that the mirror of the University Museum, 
the finest mirror of Romano-Etruscan art that has come 
down to us, was found at Perugia. The race is closely 
akin to the Florentine type, but of sterner stuff. 
Umbria has had too much of war and violence in her 
past to have escaped from all traces thereof. The 
history of Florence is almost pacific compared with that of 
Perugia, which, for over two hundred years, was a fortress 
rather than a city, and had more towers than houses. 
Perugia turrita, towered Perugia it was called. Its griffin 



"TOWERED PERUGIA" 125 

with threatening beak, outspread wings, claws unsheathed 
and ready to tear, was a truthful symbol ; the she- 
wolves of Rome and Siena, the lions of Venice and the 
Guelfs, the neighing stallion of Arezzo are less bellicose. 
Etruscan or Roman, feudal or democratic, under the 
yoke of Pope or tyrant, Perugia was always at war. 
In the Middle Ages more especially, ground between 
Rome and the Empire, and rent by internecine quarrels, 
it never laid aside its arms. In the little streets of the 
town, narrow and tortuous as passages, cut-throat alleys 
where everything is eloquent of attack and defence, 
between the old palaces with grated windows, on the 
ancient pavements, undisturbed since the centuries 
when they were so often stained with blood, we cannot 
but think of that terrible BagUoni family, of which it 
was said that their children were born with a sword 
at their sides, and whose members without exception 
died a violent death. One day the bopsh Simonetto 
had to defend himseK single-handed against a bevy 
of enemies. If the youthful Raphael was not present 
at the scene, he often witnessed similar exploits, and 
there can be no doubt that they inspired the two pictures 
in the Louvre, the spirited St. George and St. Raphael, 
which he painted for his native town during his sojourn 
at Perugia. What tragic scenes were witnessed by the 
Municipio, that frowning mass of masonry which is 
only enlivened by apertures, colonnades and pointed 
bays, at a height where attack was not to be feared. 
The very churches were stern and bellicose, like that 
strange Sant' Ercolane, with its bristling battlemented 
walls, where the many masses that have been said have 
proved powerless to efface the stains of blood. One 
morning before a ceremony when no water was obtain- 
able, the walls of the church had to be washed down 
with wine. 



126 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

It is indeed one of the most curious phenomena of 
the history of Italy, this perpetual mixture of barbarism 
and religion which characterised the dawn of the Re- 
naissance. Sigismondo PandoKo, Captain of the Holy 
Church, commissioned L. B. Alberti to enshrine the 
temple of Rimini in marble in honour of his fourth 
wife, after having repudiated his first, poisoned his 
second, and strangled his third. But nowhere was 
the antithesis more startling than here, in the small 
towns that lived on pillage and murder, where war was 
waged between city and city, quarter and quarter, 
family and family, and yet where the delicate art of the 
Umbrian School and the holy works of Franciscan 
piety sprang up like flowers between the blood-stained 
flagstones. St. Francis himself, a soldier in his youth, 
is the living type of that martial and mystical Umbria 
where oak and olive alternate on the hill-sides. 

Italian devotion is, indeed, entirely formal and ex- 
ternal. At a High Mass celebrated by the Cardinal of 
Ferrara, who presided over the jubilee festivities that 
year, I saw people coming into the church as into a 
theatre, and going from one altar to another, loudly 
admiring the decoration and illumination of the church. 
The women were walking about fan in hand, pausing 
for a moment to take part in the service, genuflect 
and make the sign of the Cross, and then continuing 
their promenade, chatting with the friends they 
encountered, and admiring the Madonna della Grazia, 
illuminated by limelight at the top of the nave like the 
" star " in a ballet. 

To-day the Cathedral is deserted. The sacristan, 
seeing a stranger, hurries to me and proposes to show 
me the works of art of his church, especially Baroccio's 
Descent from the Cross ; but I make off while he is drawing 
up the curtain that conceals it. Why should I look 



STREETS OF PERUGIA 127 

again at that vociferous canvas, a work entirely lacking 
in feeling, and impressive only as the sight of an epileptic 
seizure is impressive ? How much more poignant in 
its harsh simplicity is Luca Signorelli's Madonna with 
Four Saints ! At the time when he painted this picture 
no artist, not even Mantegna himself, had a more 
profound knowledge of anatomy. What sobriety, 
what gravity of arrangement, what severe and some- 
what bitter power ! It is well to come and look at this 
work after studying the Peruginos in the Pinacoteca ; 
quitting the cold and artificial world in which the 
imagination of the master of Perugia delighted, we 
shall the better appreciate life and reality. 

On leaving the Cathedral I enter the labyrinth of little 
streets which intersect each other in every direction, 
ascending, descending, terminating in a flight of steps, 
or on a terrace above which we see the rippling silver 
of olive groves and the gentle undulations of hills 
covered with houses. The tiny squares overhanging 
the ravines that separate the various suburbs of the 
town, such as the Piazza di Porta Sole or the Piazza 
delle Prome, are full of fascination. The soul of the 
past hovers over them, emerges from the ancient houses, 
and wanders round the silent gardens that slumber in 
the shade of the walls, showing only the funereal 
distaffs of their tall cypresses. Branches of willow and 
Virginian creeper climb up the iron gates, and hang, 
pensive and weary, from the rusty bars, as if they 
remembered. Mosses sprout between the stones of 
the walls, sometimes so thickly that they pad the 
houses as it were, and deaden vibration. Blocks of 
freestone fallen from ruined gateways, roofs overgrown 
with grass, all have the resigned but haughty air of the 
things of a bygone age which await death without 
protest, knowing that nothing can make them live 



128 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

again. Yet here and there an open window, a figure 
seen at the end of a dark passage, a shop, a stall, a 
housefront with oleander blossoms remind us that 
daily life goes on, that creatures are born and struggle 
and die, that lovers embrace and suffer, here as elsewhere. 

The pride of Perugia is the Giardino di Fronte, a 
terrace clinging to the mountain, which overhangs 
the valley like the prow of a ship on the waves. Nearly 
all the cities of Tuscany and Umbria have these ad- 
mirably situated terraces commanding the plain, 
designed rather for the delight of the eye than for the 
exigencies of attack and defence. The Italians provided 
themselves with free spectacles of infinite variety. 
They were familiar with all the magic of light, the fresh- 
ness of morning, the splendours of noon, the violence 
or the sweetness of twilight. Even so far from Greece 
as this, we can understand the farewells of antique 
heroes to life. Under a sky less intensely blue but as 
pure as that of Athens, the most mournful of all thoughts 
must be the reflection that we shall never behold the 
light of day again. When the people of the North 
shrink from death, they dwell on annihilation, the 
disappearance of their moral and intellectual personality ; 
those of the South regret the joy of living and breathing 
in the sunshine, the delight of loving and admiring 
which they will know no more. 

My favourite time for dreaming in this garden is the 
twilight, when the sky is turning a milky blue, the 
soft shade of Parma violets. The Umbrian valley 
thrusts itself between the double chain of the Apen- 
nines and the hills that dominate the Tiber. The 
mountains draw together and form one of those vague 
backgrounds beloved of Leonardo. The towns in the 
distance are blurred by the light mist which rises from 
the overheated soil. Yet one can still distinguish the 



THE GIARDINO DI FRONTE 129 

windings of the river, the roofs of the Portiuncula and 
Bastia, and white Assisi on the flank of the Subasio. 
So familiar is the panorama to me that I can even place 
Spello, Foligno in the plain, Montefalco on the summit 
of its peak, and behind the hill of Bettona, the Rocca 
of Spoleto and its wood of ilexes. 

The approach of evening enhances the spirituality 
of this spot which Dante called " the garden of the 
Peninsula," and Renan " the Galilee of Italy." I 
can recall no other landscape so full at once of sweetness 
and majesty. Before this valley where so many civilisa- 
tions have followed one upon the other, where so many 
centuries of history have left their mark, where religion 
and art found their purest expression, all sensation 
seems to become more vivid, all thought more lofty. 
Every little town in the plain or on the hills suggests 
glorious names and famous works. Setting aside 
Perugia, where a great school arose and flourished, 
where the Pisani and Angelico worked, where Perugino 
developed and Raphael studied, we have Assisi with 
Cimabue and Giotto, Spello and its Pintoricchios, Trevi 
and its Spagnas, Spoleto and its Filippo Lippis, Monte- 
falco and its Gozzolis. The eye wanders from the ancient 
Tiber to sacred Clitumnus, from the Topino sung by Dante 
to the roofs of the Portiuncula, from the hills of Trasy- 
mene to the walls of Spoleto where Lucrezia Borgia 
reigned. From this very belvedere, the Perugians saw 
the Etruscan cohorts and the legions of Flaminius, 
the crowds which flocked to S. Francis, the armies 
of the Pope and the soldiers of Napoleon. One might 
grave on the gates of Perugia, with a slight modification, 
an inscription akin to that at the entrance to Siena : 
Cor magis Perugia pandit. Perugia opens the heart 
more widely. 

When I arrived a few tourists were seated on the stone 

& 



130 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

benches, Baedeker in hand, trying to recognise the 
various towns below or to follow the course of the 
Tiber which disappears among trees and meadows. 
But as evening fell, they departed. Only an old man 
remained, walking to and fro and leading an idiot 
child who babbled incoherently. 

Gradually darkness crept over the landscape. The 
hills drew together and formed a closer circle round the 
plain, throwing their shadow over the valleys. A 
cracked bell rang shrilly from the tower of San Pietro, 
seeming ' in Dante's mournful words to lament the 
dying day. The tramontana began to blow, sharp 
and cold. I returned hurriedly by the deserted Cor so 
Cavour, pursued by the doleful voice of the little idiot. 



CHAPTER II 

UMBRIAN AST 

Before entering the Museum, I had a fancy to see 
once more the Fonte Maggiore, one of the most beautiful 
fountains in Italy, which has so many. It is supremely 
elegant with its three superposed basins and its double 
row of bas-reliefs. One of these bears a pompous 
inscription stiU decipherable, in which the names of 
Niccolo and Giovanni Pisano are coupled for the first 
time. The father was nearing the end of his illustrious 
career ; the son was beginning his. The dawn of the 
fourteenth century was already breaking. Abandoning 
ancient formulas, Art was turning to Nature, and no 



LEGEND OF S. FRANCIS 131 

longer confining itself to the expression of religious 
sentiment. This revolution was initiated by sculpture 
under the dual influence of the antique statues, casts 
of which Niccolo had seen in Southern Italy, and of the 
new French art. When and how did the Pisani study 
the admirable sculpture of the French cathedrals ? 
I must leave the question to " historians., but it is 
certain that as early as the middle of the thirteenth 
century, Gothic art was familiar to them. The pulpits 
of the Baptistery of Pisa and the Cathedral of Siena 
bear witness to this, as also certain details of the Fonte 
Maggiore. The figure representing Dialectics, for 
instance, is dressed in the French manner, and Music, 
instead of holding the traditional lyre, is striking little 
bells, as on the capital in the Cathedral of Chartres 
where she is represented above Pythagoras. 

But there was another influence at the root of this 
artistic revival : the Franciscan movement. Thode 
went too far, perhaps, in maintaining that the Re- 
naissance was the outcome of this movement, and 
Renan too exaggerated when he declared that " the 
sordid beggar of Assisi was the father of Italian art " ; 
but there is no doubt that S. Francis did more to hasten 
the dawn of the new era than any of his contemporaries. 
His life, instinct with love and humility, pity and 
charity, the legend of the Portiuncula mingling at every 
turn with the life of the people, the history of the popular 
order of the Fratelli, all spoke directly to the sensibility 
of artists who did their best to translate the tender 
or pathetic impressions they received. It is a mistake 
to couple the name of S. Dominic with that of S. Francis 
in connection with the Italian Renaissance, as some 
have done. True, the violent apostle of Calahora and 
the preaching friars who carried his doctrines throughout 
the world, also used art as a means of education and 

K 2 



132 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

propaganda ; but they did not inspire artists directly. 
They merely demanded from them vast symbolical 
compositions to serve as moralising influences among 
the masses, synthetic works in harmony with their 
cold, dogmatic spirit. A sure proof that they had no 
part in the artistic revival is the fact that there are 
hardly any portraits of S. Dominic and his disciples, 
whereas those of the Poverello may be counted by 
thousands. He may be recognised in the mosaics of 
San Giovanni Laterano and Santa Maria Maggiore, 
in the old frescoes of Giunta and BerHnghieri, and in 
one of the sculptures of Orvieto. In the cupola of the 
Baptistery of Parma, the scene of the stigmata forms 
a pendant to the vision of Bzekiel. Last year at Siena 
I was struck by the numerous representations of S. 
Francis in the Istituto delle Belle Arti ; the first picture 
one sees on entering, attributed to Margheritone of 
Arezzo, the next two, described in the Catalogue as 
" in the Greek manner," and over forty others in the 
gallery all depict him opening his coarse woollen gown 
to show in his side the mark of the spear. 

In order to illustrate the Franciscan poem, artists, 
in default of tradition, were driven to direct observation 
of life. Heretofore, they may be said to have expressed 
but a single sentiment, one common to all Christianity : 
the awe of man in the presence of Deity. In the earliest 
paintings that have come down to us, God is a fierce 
and threatening master, inaccessible to the faithful. 
The Madonna is always the Byzantine Virgin, impassible 
and rigid ; in the Crucifixion scene, she weeps, standing 
upright. The persons round the cross, stiff and motion- 
less, have very large heads, and vacant, lifeless eyes, 
after the vecchia maniera greca gojfa e sproporzionata 
(the old Greek manner, clumsy and disproportionate) 
of which Vasari speaks. We feel that the painter was 



THE FONTE MAGGIORE 133 

oppressed by the religious terror which overhung the 
whole of the Middle Ages. When the sun of Assisi 
had illumined the Italian sky, Art, bursting open its 
leaden coffin, sprang upwards towards the light. The 
old Christian drama was rejuvenated and humanised ; 
it learned love and pity. The ancient moulds gave 
way under the pressure of the new castings. Artists 
abandoned their painfully acquired formulas to seek 
inspiration and models in their own surroundings ; 
their personages were real and living like themselves, 
like those S. Francis had shown them in his stories. 
Christ became once more the Son of Man ; they 
represented Him crowned with thorns. His eyes closed, 
His head bowed. His body drooping and bleeding, as 
in the fine wooden crucifix of the Pinacoteca which 
Perugino fastened to one of his works. Jesus was no 
longer the Christ of glory and majesty, but the suffering 
Saviour who died for the sins of the world. The hieratic 
Madonna was humanised ; she bent maternally over 
her Babe, or pressed Him to her bosom. The episode 
preferred above all others was the most human of all, 
the scene the Italians called a Pieta, the Virgin with 
the dead body of her Son across her knees. And 
painters and sculptors began to look at Nature, to seek 
inspiration around them, paraphrasing the Hymn of 
created Things. Trees, fruit, garlands of vine, and land- 
scape were introduced. Thus on the Fonte Maggiore, 
in spite of its dilapidation and the railing which prevents 
us from examining it closely, we recognise rustic scenes, 
the works of the successive months, the vintage, hunting 
and fishing, animals, no longer terrible and grimacing, 
but natural and lively, a lamb, a wolf, a dog, birds, a 
falcon, all those the saint had loved and with which he 
had talked so often. The month of April is typified 
by a woman holding a cornucopia and a basket of 



134 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

roses ; does she not herald the advent of the Re- 
naissance, like Botticelli's Spring, crowned with leaves 
and scattering flowers ? 

But let us enter the Municipio. The Pinacoteca is 
almost empty . . . Boccati, Bonfigli, Fiorenzo : how I 
love your works, those ardent and vivid acts of faith ! 
Your colour, lucid and transparent, aptly translates the 
purity of your hearts ; its limpid fluidity seems almost 
immaterial. Your tints are red as the flame of your 
love, or blue as the immaculate azure of your skies in 
which shone the most radiant light that had beamed 
upon the world since the Star of Bethlehem. I regret, 
of course, that your pictures are no longer in the churches 
for which you painted them. But here, at least, 
you have been spared incongruous surroundings, and 
your gentle Virgins, moved by the appearance of the 
Annunciation Angel, are not jostled by bathing nymphs, 
or voluptuous Ledas. You did not look upon the sacred 
legends as agreeable anecdotes which lent themselves 
readily to illustration. Your Christianity is sincere, not 
false and theatrical as it too soon became among your 
neighbours in Florence, Rome and Bologna. You 
sought to serve religion by your art ; later, it was religion 
which was made to minister to art. And I love you also 
because you have been misunderstood. Even nowadays, 
the critics are severe, when, indeed, they notice you at 
all. They mention you grudgingly, in the interests of 
completeness. One of them, speaking of Bonfigli of 
late, merely notes in passing " the mediocre efforts of 
a painter of insipid angels crowned with chaplets of 
roses." Others, because you were pious, artless, and 
sincere, class you as mystics obstinately opposed to the 
realistic movement, and explain this by the fact that 
you lived in the neighbourhood of S. Francis ; thej^ 
fail to see that it is hardly logical to make the same man 



FIORENZO DI LORENZO 135 

responsible for Giotto's naturalistic revolution and the 
alleged reaction of the Perugian painters. 

But, in fact, even in the old Boccati there is a curious 
striving after truth. What could be less mystical than 
the frieze of archers and horsemen, or the Child playing 
with a hare ? The flowery portico behind the Virgin 
is like those affected by Mantegna, and the variety of 
the musical instruments in the concert of angels shows 
an evident desire for reality. These naturalistic 
tendencies become more pronounced in Bonfigli. His 
naivetes are not always due to awkwardness and inex- 
perience ; they are often deliberate and aim at dramatic 
effect. Is not the gesture of the friar who covers his 
face with his hand to hide his tears, in the Burial of 
8. Ludovic, a very touching one ? What a sense of 
movement and picturesqueness there is in the Banner 
of S. Bernardino ! How vividly the painter has depicted 
the strange scene of the fanatical crowd burning all 
objects of vanity and luxury, books and jewels, at the 
bidding of the saint ! The background of the picture 
is an exact representation of the fagade of San Bernar- 
dino, which had just been completed ; the majority of 
the figures are portraits. The work of Fiorenzo di 
Lorenzo is still more devoid of mysticism ; and what 
was very remarkable at the period, the artist preferred 
to paint external life rather than pious episodes. Grace 
and movement are his chief preoccupations, and he is 
more akin to Ghirlandajo and even to Verrocchio than 
to Perugino. The modelling of faces and bodies, the 
colour of stuffs, the animation of scenes, are all carried 
to a high degree of perfection in each of those small 
panels intended for the door of a sacristy, which are 
among the most fascinating works I know. Everything 
in them is lively, nervous and intelligent. What 
lightness, what almost feline flexibility in the young 



136 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

warriors ! What grace and fancy in the landscape back- 
grounds and the architecture, what richness and variety 
in the begemmed and embroidered garments which 
recall Crivelli's sumptuous draperies ! 

Such were the tendencies of that School of Perugia 
which we must not call Umbrian, for this over-compre- 
hensive term does not distinguish between these painters 
and other artists, who, though born in Umbria, attached 
themselves either to Siena or Florence. The confused 
and sometimes contradictory views put forward in this 
connection are due in the main to a desire to classify 
all painters born or having worked in Umbria, as of one 
single school. I think, on the contrary, that if we wish 
to understand these artists, we must divide them into 
three groups. 

There are first the painters of the Southern group, 
which I may perhaps be allowed to call the School of 
Foligno, because its two chief representatives, Gentile 
da Fabriano and Niccolo Alunno, were born in that 
town. Both were very strongly influenced by Siena, 
and later, by Benozzo Gozzoli when he was working in 
the district, that Is to say, at a time when he was still 
deeply imbued with the ideas of his master, Fra Angelico. 
They were artists of austere and passionate piety, stub- 
bornly faithful to the old traditions, and entirely 
untouched by the emancipating movement which was 
spreading outward from Tuscany. 

At the other end of Umbria, in the part nearer to 
Florence, the new tendencies manifested themselves 
very rapidly. Piero della Francesca, Melozzo da Forli, 
and Luca Signorelli of Cortona are admirable painters, 
bold and original, men who have nothing in common 
with the Sienese idealists. 

The true Umbrian School is in reality that of Perugia, 
which was born and developed under the double influence 



PERUGINO 137 

of Florence and Siena. The religious ideal persisted 
here in all its purity, but artists sought to express it in 
a truer, more real, and more vital manner. Boccati, 
Bonfigli and Fiorenzo di Lorenzo are its representative 
painters. Perugino unfortunately arrested the realistic 
movement in its infancy. More gifted than the others, 
and more skilled in the technique of oil-painting, he 
obtained the greatest success with sentimental, mystical 
works in which material perfection was carried to its 
highest point. The love of money, to which he sacri- 
ficed everything, induced him to repeat them incessantly. 
There is no more lamentable instance of a master who 
debased his art. His studio became a devotional 
picture-shop. Tuscany and Umbria were inundated 
with his commercial productions, works of facile tech- 
nique, executed from memory according to formulas dear 
to the public. When Perugino did something more than 
repeat himself — either in works in which he took some 
pride, or in portraits like those of the Cambio and the 
sacristy of San Pietro— he was really a great painter. 
Was he a believer at first, or was he always a sceptic ? 
The question, which has often been discussed, is of little 
moment. It is, however, interesting to note that the 
same man who inscribed the first words of one of Savona- 
rola's sermons beneath his own portrait died after refusing 
to make his confession, a most audacious act in those 
days. 

I am inclined to think that he was always an unbeliever. 
He painted religious scenes because the artist of those 
times rarely painted anything else. And as he could 
neither animate an action nor reproduce movement he 
confined his attention to faces, the colour of draperies, 
and landscape. H he had been a man of strong sensi- 
bility, if he had lost his faith during some crisis, we 
should note a change, a transition. If he had been 



138 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

really sincere at first, something would have betrayed 
him later. Now his works are always characterised by 
the same coldness, the same ecstatic expression, devo- 
tional rather than pious. His persons have never lived 
and suffered ; their impassive faces are marked by an 
eternal indifference ; they seem, to quote Taine, to have 
had their intellectual growth arrested in childhood by a 
conventual education. They never look at anything. 
They have no part in the scenes at which they are 
present. The symmetry of their attitudes and of the 
landscape enhances their insipidity. In an Adoration 
of the Shepherds the setting consists of four wooden 
pillars surmounted by a little triangular roof, about the 
most stupid framework ever devised by a painter. 
Individually, the figures, the draperies and the per- 
spectives are beautiful, but the general effect is cold 
and undeniably tedious. Perugino's faults are more 
especially prominent in galleries where his works are 
hung among those of other artists as in the Pinacoteca, 
where Fiorenzo di Lorenzo's Adoration of the Magi 
confronts his Coronation of the Virgin. Perugino's 
work is as frigid and inert as that of Fiorenzo is warm 
and vital. There is nothing mystical about the Fiorenzo, 
the true and animated figures of which all play their 
part in the action ; those of the Perugino, on the other 
hand, are motionless, false in expression and attitude ; 
their diminutive hands and faces are out of harmony 
with their elongated figures. 

By bringmg the School of Perugia to the apogee of 
its renown, Perugino killed its glory. Local artists — • 
who were very numerous, if we may judge by the long 
list of works catalogued under the heading, " School of 
Perugino" — -confined themselves to the imitation of 
him who had so sedulously imitated himself. Among 
these were some who might have become great 



ASSISI 139 

painters, had they escaped his depressing influence : 
Giovanni di Pietro, for instance, called Lo Spagna, 
fine examples of whom are preserved at Spoleto, 
Assisi and Perugia, and Giannicola Manni, an artist 
who should be better known, and who does not 
appear to very great disadvantage beside Perugino in 
the Cambio. I admire his grace and facility. Fortunate 
Pintoricchio, who was summoned to Rome, and still 
more fortunate Raphael, who was to breathe the free air 
of Tuscany ! In the fresco by the latter in San Severo, 
there is already a more vital power. The worship of 
beauty was about to be born again on the old pagan soil. 
Very soon sensuality was to break through the veil of 
religion. The Virgins were to become merely young 
women with rich, supple carnations. Raphael at 
Perugia, on his return from his first journey to Florence, 
seems to me the embodiment of this dramatic moment 
in the history of human sensibility, when the pious 
dream of the Middle Ages faded before renascent 
paganism. 



CHAPTER III 



ASSISI 



Intra Tupino et I'aequa che discende 
Del colle eletto del Beato Ubaldo 
Fertile costa d'alto monte pende . . . ^ 

This fertile slope which lies at the foot of Monte 
Subasio, between the Chiascio and the Topino, is the 

^ Between Tupino and the water that descends from the 
height chosen by the Blessed Ubaldo hangs the fertile slope of 
the lofty mountain. 



140 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

hillside of Assisi ; I see it covered with vines and olives 
from the carriage which is taking me down towards the 
Tiber, to the leisurely trot of a pair of horses who seem 
already tired as we start. The morning is fresh and 
luminous. There was rain in the night, and through the 
clarified atmosphere everything is so sharply defined 
that I think of the lumine acute spoken of by Dante. A 
single shower has sufficed to bring Umbria verde to 
life again as by magic. Drops of water still shine on the 
light foliage of the olives, whose doleful trunks look 
blacker and more tragic than ever after their bath of 
rain. They are, indeed, the most melancholy of trees, 
meet witnesses of the Saviour's Passion. Those which 
clothe the slopes of the hills are some of the most 
venerable in Italy. They are so old that they must 
have been centenarians in the time of S. Francis. Torn 
and ravaged as if by internal suffering, cracked and 
hollow, they bear the imprint of their struggles to push 
aside the rock and find the scanty soil. Sometimes 
nothing but the bark is left of the trunk, and we wonder 
how the sap can still rise. Cold, heat, rain and wind 
have tortured them for centuries, like the lost souls 
which moan from the darkest pages of the Inferno. 
Like serpents intertwined in deadly combat, like twisted, 
knotted cables, like muscles rigid in their incessant 
defensive readiness all the aspects of the tree beloved 
of Pallas seem here to symbolise war rather than peace. 
But by a curious contrast, the most delicate foliage 
veils the rugged trunks, and there is no more charming 
sight than the shimmer of the little leaves, glinting in 
the sun like silver scales. 

At the foot of the slope, nature changes and becomes 
smiling. We see very few olive-trees now. The land- 
scape is like a huge garden. Mulberry- trees, vineyards, 
corn and maize share the fields of this plain which was 



''GENTLE UMBRIA" 141 

once the bed of Lake Topino. On the slight undulations 
there are a few groups of massive ilexes, and here and 
there a poplar, or a cypress, less vigorous, but concentra- 
ting all their sap on a single point to spring heavenwards. 
The houses are embowered in orchards and pergolas. 
Heaps of tomatoes drying in the sun make large red 
splashes. It seems as if life must be easy here, and the 
horizon itself, bounded on every side by a line of har- 
monious hills, attunes the soul to peace. A light breeze 
is blowing and its murmur is soft as that of the wind 
among the reeds of Thrasymene. An impression of 
strength and health rises from the rich earth. Umbria 
is at once more joyous and harsher then Tuscany ; it 
realises more fully the soave austero. We are easily 
duped by words, by that piperie against which Montaigne 
warns us, and very often we find in things the appearance 
we desire beforehand to see in them ; but " gentle 
Umbria" is really no mere conventional phrase, especially 
if we take the word in its widest and strongest sense. 
Umbria is " gentle " because it is peaceful, because 
its rhythms are quiet and equable, because the admira- 
tion it inspires is without terror, because it is truly 
human. I understand why the joy of life held a larger 
place in the religion of S. Francis than the fear of death. 
If at Perugia it is possible to forget the Poverello, here 
in this valley on which his eyes first opened and finally 
closed in death, along this road studded with little altars 
to the Virgin, it is out of the question. Each corner 
suggests an episode of his wonderful life or witnessed 
one of his miracles. His name is ubiquitous. We 
walk on the very roads he trod, and they have hardly 
changed. Here is the Ponte San Giovanni, the old saddle- 
back bridge across the Tiber ; although it is nearly 
dried up, the sight of the stream stirs the blood ; the 
waters are mysterious mirrors which keep some vibration 



142 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of the things they have reflected. Over this bridge S. 
Francis passed every time he went from Assisi to Perugia, 
and on that evening when he was led away a prisoner by 
the triumphant Perugians. The same meadows, the 
same trees saw him, and also the same gentle, amiable 
inhabitants, to whom he talked of his dreams and his 
beliefs. I imagine him on summer mornings sallying 
forth from the Portiuncula, going to meet the peasants, 
chatting with them and helping them in their work. 
Then at close of day, after sharing a meal at a farm, 
speaking to them of the glories of Nature, under the 
tranquil splendour of the starlit heavens. 

The love of Nature has become a commonplace. 
There is hardly anyone in these days who does not admire 
— -more or less sincerely — -a sunrise, or a sunset, the 
sparkling sea, a flowery meadow, a russet wood in 
autumn. In the poems and novels of recent years 
more pages have been inspired by the beauty of land- 
scapes than by analysis of the human heart. And many 
wTiters might repeat with the poetess of Cceur 
innombrable : 

La foret, les etangs et le^ plaines fecondes 

Ont plus touche mes yeux que les regards humains.^ 

But in mediaeval Italian literature, it is rare to 
find a few lines devoted to a natural spectacle. Pictur- 
esque details are conspicuously absent. We must 
make a reservation in the cases of Dante, Petrarch, and, 
in the following century, that Sylvius JEneas Piccolomini 
who, when he became Pope, loved to hold a consistory 
on the verge of a meadow, in the shade of venerable 
trees, and whose descriptions of Todi, Nemi and Siena 
seem almost modern. The Umbrian plain, now so 

1 Forests, pools and fertile plains have said more to my eyes 
than human looks. 



THE UMBRIAN PLAIN 143 

famous and so belauded, did not inspire the writers of 
bygone ages who beheld it. Montaigne devotes but a 
few lines to it, when, on the road to Ancona he halted 
at FoUgno, without deigning to ascend to Assisi. Presi- 
dent de Brosses did not leave his coach, and admired the 
famous landscape through the window " taking good 
care, " as he says, " not to go to Assisi, for he feared 
stigmata like all devils." Goethe merely noted a temple 
of Minerva in the town of S. Francis, and Stendhal 
himself says nothing of the road by which he travelled 
returning from Rome to Perugia : on the journey 
thither, he did not enter Umbria at all, and he was 
content with an absent-minded survey by moonlight 
of the remains of " those cities of ancient Etruria, 
always perched on the top of some mountain " ; the 
only sentiment they seem to have evoked in him was 
indignation with the Romans, " who, by no better title 
than that of a brutal courage, came to trouble the peace 
of those republics which were so greatly their superiors 
by their fine arts, their wealth and their faculty for 
happiness." S. Francis, on the other hand, spent his 
life praising this valley, rejoicing in its light, drinking 
it in with his eyes, to use a popular but expressive 
phrase. He had been contemplating it since his child- 
hood, the age when impressions leave such inefEaceable 
traces on a fresh imagination that the boy Ruskin, 
gazing at the plain about Croydon, exclaimed that his 
eyes were coming out of his head ! The parents of the 
young Bernardone lived at Assisi, in the upper part of 
the town, and from his windows he could admire the 
landscape in all the grace of spring and all the melancholy 
of autumn. Its wide horizons and their undulations 
had no secrets for him. Even where the Chiascio 
disappears amongst the verdure, his practised eye 
could follow its sinuous course through the fields. Few 



144 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

rural scenes are more steeped in poetry than this valley 
between Perugia and Foligno. How mournful must 
the Poverello's sensations have been, when, on returning 
from his journey to Egypt, eager to see his native land, 
he halted in the Venetian lagoon under the funereal 
yews of the little desolate island which has been sacred 
to him ever since. How gladly he must have turned 
away from the dismal scene, where everything spoke 
of sorrow and death ! How he must have evoked the 
smiling hills of Assisi shaded by their silvery olive- 
trees ! And, how joyfully they must have welcomed 
their loving and docile son ! 

To the amazement of my driver, I tell him not to stop 
at the Church of Santa Maria degl' Angeli. The memory 
of this was one of the least agreeable I had carried away 
from the holy hill, and I was loth to revive it. True, 
the Portiuncula stood here, it is the cradle of the illus- 
trious Order which was to give five Popes to Christen- 
dom ; but what remains of the primitive hut which was 
the scene of the idyll of S. Francis and " Madame 
Poverty " ? In a pamphlet I bought on a former 
visit, and find among my notes, I read that " the 
elegance of the various styles, the perfect purity of the 
lines, the vast space it covers, make this basihca one of 
the finest in the world, and on entering it, the heart 
swells, uplifted by its luminous ampHtude." But I 
remember sadly the miserable little chapel in the huge 
new church, Overbeck's heavy fresco, and the very 
modern garden of thornless roses from which the monks 
— 'for a consideration — 'will pluck you a few speckled 
leaves. Gentle PovereUo, who would once fain have 
pulled down the walls covered with tiles which your 
companions had substituted in your absence for the 
original thatched huts, what would you think of the 
cold and sumptuous dwelling which the people of this 



S. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 145 

century have built for you ? Vainly would you seek the 
roof of the humble cell on which, the evening that you 
died, the larks alighted at sunset with joyous cries, 
although it is their habit to sing only in the brightness 
of morning, alaudce aves lucis amiccc (larks, those birds 
which love the light). 

At a turn in the road, Assisi appears in all its majesty. 
Seen from this point, the city is formidable. It is a 
warrior-town, an impregnable fortress, set upon a butt- 
ress of the Subasio. It is a citadel of another kind, too, 
one of the most glorious of the spiritual world. At the 
sight of it I thrill to one of those profound emotions 
which once or twice in a lifetime stir the most secret 
fibres of our being ; when, before a work of art, we 
discover pure beauty ; when, under the lines of a book, 
the very laws of life are revealed to us ; when from some 
height we see, as did Ruskin on the terrace of SchafE- 
hausen, a panorama so marvellous and magnificent that 
we are ready to fall on our knees. 

The places where a great man lived will always 
move us, if they served to develop his sensibilities. 
Landscapes more especially appeal to our imagination, 
because they do not change, and we can say to ourselves : 
this is the horizon on which his eyes rested ; these are 
the plains and hills, unchanged after centuries, which 
enchanted him. The landscape round Assisi stirs us 
more deeply than its churches and its monastery. 
These trees, now reddened by the summer sun, these 
golden vine-branches hanging from the elms, these 
yellowing fields will all be clothed in verdure again, 
for ever young and new, when those massive walls have 
crumbled to dust. 

No saint has proved so attractive to the erudite, or 
inspired so many learned commentaries, as he who 
condemned science and one day sold the only Psalter 

L 



146 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of the Portiuncula to give bread to an old woman. I 
forget who it was who said somewhat maliciously that 
S- Francis hated books because he foresaw those which 
would be written about himself. No writer has felt 
more tenderly towards him than the author of the Vie 
de Jesus ; Renan admired more especially his love of 
poverty, a love so strange and individual that even his 
disciples did not understand it, regarding mendicancy 
as a work of piety which conferred special graces. "Like 
the patriarch of Assisi," said Renan, " I have gone 
through the world without any serious attachments 
to it, and merely as a lodger, so to say. Though 
neither of us had anything, we both considered ourselves 
rich. God gave us the usufruct of the universe, and we 
were content to enjoy without possessing." 

The charm of S. Francis and the attraction he has for 
minds utterly unUke his own are perhaps due to the fact 
that he was very little of a churchman. He is nothing 
of a priest, nothing of a theologian. He was not very 
well versed in the Bible, and quite ignorant of scholastics. 
He knew little about the saints, though he was to be 
one of the greatest of them. He was, above all, pro- 
foundly human. Having lived the life of this world, 
he was sensible of its sorrows and humiliations. It is 
with him, says one of his historians very aptly, as with 
the Imitation of Christ ; "a book in which men most 
opposite in thought and opinion find sustenance, and 
which was dear to the founder of Positivism. It is not 
essential to believe in order to love this book, or to 
admire the acts and words of this Saint ; it is enough to 
have loved and suffered." The son of Bernadone, the 
clothier of Assisi, had lived, loved and suffered. He 
might have adopted the verses the Abbe Le Cardonnel 
repeated to me a few years ago, on the little balcony of 
San Pietro which I see from here, hanging on the hillside, 



MONTEFALCO 147 

the balcony on which Cardinal Pecci used to stand and 
dream when he was still only the Archbishop of Perugia : 

Comme le voyageur qui n'a trouve que sables 
Chercheur d'ivresse, coeur amerement puni. 
Pour avoir trop aime las beaut^s perissables 
Je sais quelle tristesse est au fond du fini.^ 



CHAPTER IV 

MONTEFALOO 

One of the most extraordinary phenomena in the 
history of art is the prodigious florescence of painters 
who, about the period of the Renaissance, covered the 
walls of Italian churches, more especially those of 
Tuscany and Umbria, with masterpieces. Tiny chapels 
hidden among the mountains contain frescoes which are 
often remarkable, and nearly always interesting. New 
examples come to light daily from beneath the plaster 
overlaying them, and many are no doubt still sleeping 
beneath their white shrouds. In their stupid haste to 
get rid of these venerable relics, the people of the 17th 
and 18th centuries did not allow themselves time to 
destroy them, and were content to cover them over with 
a coat of whitewash. These barbarians thus became the 
involuntary preservers of the works which offended their 
bad taste. Would that I had leisure to go and visit 
some of these humble churches ! That of Rocchicciola, 

1 Like the traveller who has found nothing but sand, seeker of 
joy, heart bitterly punished, I, who have loved too fondly the 
things that perish, know the bitterness that lies in the depths of 
the end. 

L 2 



148 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

for instance, which is only to be reached by a rugged 
path, and where a few years ago, M. Broussolle had the 
joy of restoring a whole series of fine paintings to life. 
But time presses. I must leave Umbria. I have only 
two more days to devote to it, and these I have kept 
jealously for Montefalco. 

The crossing of the plain of Foligno, the ascent of 
the peak on which the little town is perched like a falcon 
in its eyrie, the walk through the olive groves, the 
horizons that gradually expand as one mounts, the 
art-treasures that await the pilgrim in the Church of 
San Francesco, are certainly among the deepest and most 
exquisite of the impressions offered by this lavish 
Umbrian land. This is mainly because civilisation has 
changed scarcely anything in this spot. Montefalco 
has remained almost what it was in past centuries, and 
tourists are very rare here still. For two days I was 
the only stranger wandering in the deserted street ; 
no other sacrilegious step resounded on their sharp 
stones. 

The plain of Foligno is one of the most fertile in Italy. 
Even in Lombardy I have rarely seen such magnificent 
vines. The branches hang from tree to tree in leafy 
garlands, heavy with golden grapes. The vigorous 
stems, as thick as a man's arm sometimes, twine round 
the trunks of mulberry and elm ; the flexible shoots of 
the vine dart above the rounded heads of the trees and 
sway lightly in the wind like festal pennons. The 
varying tones of green mingle with harmonious grace. 
In some places the vintage is ending. The vine-dressers, 
perched upon ladders, and half hidden among the foliage, 
gather the grapes that have ripened on the topmost 
branches, and pass them to the women, who receive 
them in great baskets ; when these are full, they hoist 
them on their shoulders with a lively gesture and carry 



THE CLITUMNUS 149 

them off, moving with elastic step and rhythmic gait. 
Where have I noted just such a scene ? I remember : 
in the Campo Santo at Pisa, in the Noah's Vintage, 
so famous for the purely accessory episode of La 
Vergognosa. It must have been here that the idea of 
the fresco presented itself to Gozzoli : I recognise his 
vine-dressers, his grape-gatherers ; here, near a farm, 
is the same arbour. And is this illusion ? The land- 
scape he painted seems to me to have been just this 
corner between the double line of old willows along the 
ditches of the road. 

We meet carts drawn by great white oxen with splendid 
shining horns .^ Their eyes are pensive, gentle and sad, 
their hides spotless, of the milky whiteness of the old 
Gubbio majolicas. Suddenly my driver turns round, 
points with a theatrical gesture to a trickling stream, 
and solemnly announces : " The Clitumnus ! " Then 
he explains that this was the sacred stream whose 
waters made all the animals who drank of it white. The 
little bridge over the river is so sharply ridged that the 
horses have to be whipped up into a gallop to climb it. 
Here again was an engineer who has not been surpassed 
by modern rivals ! The water is absolutely limpid. 
We can understand the old belief. True, many other 
torrents of the Apennine slopes have the same trans- 
parence. But why reject the legends ? They are 
beloved of poets. Pliny, a poet, too, at times, compares 
the colour of this water to that of snow. Let us not 
contradict either him or Byron, who declares that the 
nymphs never bathed in purer crystal. 

After crossing a series of other little bridges over the 
numerous arms of the Teverone, which makes its way 
to the Topino, watering the fields of Bevagna on the way, 
the ascent begins. The horses subside into a walk ; 
the driver gets down from the box ; it will take us a 



150 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

good hour. But it is such a delightful sensation to rise 
thus above one of the most glorious plains in the world, 
among silvery olives quivering under the golden sunshine, 
that the road seems almost too short. The pleasure is 
complete : joy of the soul and joy of the mind, joy, too, 
of our "brother the body" to use the language of S. 
Francis. As we ascend, peaks, hills and valleys stand 
out clearly. Behind the slopes the little towns appear, 
rising from every fold in the ground. In the hollow the 
valleys spread out, perfectly even ; we see that it is the 
ancient bed of a dried-up lake. 

While they prepare me a room and a frugal meal at 
the hotel, I hasten to San Francesco. The custodian 
approaches me, grave and venerable. With a cere- 
monious gesture, he invites me to enter " his " church. 

There is nothing more melancholy than a disused 
church. All death moves us ; but this death more than 
another, because life was once more fervid here. Never- 
theless, it is well to leave these paintings in the places 
where the artists conceived them. Frescoes transferred 
to museums always remind me of those caged love- 
birds, which crouch in a corner, shivering under our 
cold skies, and looking at us pitifully. 

The custodian points out Giotto's Madonna^ the works 
which have been completely restored, and those which 
are beginning to emerge from under the whitewash. 
Nearly all the Umbrian painters are represented in this 
church, the artistic wealth of which has caused it to be 
transformed into a State Museum. 

What freshness ! What suavity of composition and 
colour ! Never was the master more perfect ! And this 
because he was never more sincere, because he put his 
whole self into his work, without seeking to astonish 
or dazzle us. All that he knew already, all that he had 
learnt from Angelico, or from the frescoes of Assisi serves 



BENOZZO GOZZOLI 151 

to express the emotions inspired in him by the pious 
country which had offered the hollows of its hills as a 
cradle for renascent Christianity. No other horizon, no 
other atmosphere could have been so inspiring to a 
believing and artistic soul. Gozzoli lived here for two 
years. After the work of the morning and at eventide 
his eyes sought rest in contemplation of the gentle 
vaUey. From the white walls of Assisi, from the roofs 
of the Portiuncula where the first flowers of mysticism 
blossomed, from the fields of Bevagna where S. Francis 
preached to the birds, the aroma of the marvellous 
legend rose to him, a heavy, intoxicating incense. But 
this plain, and also the life of the Poverello, taught him 
to love truth and nature. What a difference there is 
between these frescoes and the earlier ones at which 
he worked under the guidance of the Monk of Fiesole ! 
Though his heart had remained faithful to the tender 
ideal of his master, his mind was enlarged. The artist 
had thrown off formula and approached reality. And 
it is this which fascinates us in him. Later, at Florence, 
at San Gimignano, and at Pisa, he emancipated himself 
still further, but at some cost to his sincerity. He was 
absorbed in the briUiant, gaily coloured spectacle of 
worldly life. His art became secular, almost pagan. 
A skilful stage manager, a most picturesque story-teller, 
he set his ingenious cavalcades upon the walls of the 
palace that Michelozzo Michelozzi had just built for 
Piero de' Medici ; but then he was no longer the moved 
and moving painter of Montefalco, and in spite of all his 
science and all his skill, he seems more remote from us 
than here, in this Church of San Francesco, where he was 
content to let his heart speak. In the execution of these 
frescoes he does not show that respect for elegance and 
high finish which were later to be his chief preoccupations. 
Often, indeed, he is awkward and incorrect ; but he is 



152 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

loyal and truthful. There are no unusual attitudes, no 
elaborate essays in expression. He paints as he sees, or 
as he imagines. He illustrates to the best of his ability 
the Franciscan poem as it haunted the thoughts of a 
Christian of those days, with all its artlessness and all 
its candour. He adapted the scenes of popular life in 
which he took part daily to the life of the saint. The 
faces he gave to the actors in the legend were those 
he encountered in the streets of the little town. For 
a background he took the prospects on which his eyes 
rested, the Apennines, the Subasio, with its deep gorges, 
Spello, Bevagna, surrounded by its fat pastures, Monte- 
falco, with its ramparts and its churches. This love of 
reaUty makes him sometimes akin to our modern painters. 
The grave and tranquil silhouette of the mother of Francis 
receiving him at the top of the staircase reminded me of 
Puvis de Chavannes and his Ste. Genevieve watching over 
Paris. In the S. Francis preaching to the Birds, the 
face of the Saint is so true and so expressive that we 
seem almost to hear the exquisite sermon : " My 
brothers, praise your Creator who covered you with 
beautiful feathers, and gave you wings to fly in the pure 
and spacious air." All the birds Gozzoli saw round him 
are gathered together ; white pigeons, ducks, the linnets 
that sing in the bushes and the swallows that build in 
the walls of Montefalco. All Umbria, all the charm and 
all the sweetness of the valley are summed up here in 
the choir of this modest church, where one of the most 
exquisite among the painters of the 15th century glori- 
fied the purest idyll known among men since the time of 
Christ. 



PART IV 

VENETIA 



CHAPTER I 

VERONA 

If I have but an afternoon to spend in Verona, where 
should I spend it but in the Giusti Gardens ? Of all the 
fair gardens of Italy, which has so many in which I have 
mused and dreamed, I think this is my favourite. Others 
stir us more by their memories, and others again are 
more voluptuously situated on the banks of a lake, or by 
the sea ; but the grace and seduction of this pleasance 
are all its own. 

The Italians have always loved gardens. Pliny 
speaks to us so often and so lovingly of his that we could 
almost draw a plan of them ; their decoration can have 
differed very little from that of to-day ; in a letter to 
Apollinaris, he lauds his " alleys planted with green 
trees, leafy and well pruned, his planes on which the ivy 
cHmbs, hanging its supple wreaths from trunk to trunk." 
It was not until the time of the Renaissance that the 
lovers of gardens were no longer content with natural 
beauty, and supplemented it by compHcated ornament, 
porticoes, architectural fantasies, artificial waters and 
all that Barres so aptly describes as " the art of arranging 
realities for the delight of the soul . ' ' However, unlike the 
English (and, on occasion, the French) the ItaHans did 
not attempt to imitate nature artificially ; they only 
sought to embellish it according to the rules of art. 

155 



156 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

At Verona even more than elsewhere, perhaps, gardens 
were always held in honour. From time immemorial 
the shores of the Brenta were covered with parks and 
country houses. One of the most ancient documents on 
the villas of the Middle Ages was written as long ago as 
the 14th century for the Veronese family of the Cerruti, 
and it was also a Veronese, Leonardo Grasso, who bore 
the cost of the famous Dream of Poliphilus, in which 
several flowery groves are described and engraved. This 
morning, too, in the Museo Civico, I noticed a fine 
fountain and a garden background in the S. Catherine by 
the Veronese painter, Vittore Pisanello. 

A little courtyard with battlemented walls precedes 
the Giusti Garden ; but the walls are of pink bricks, the 
battlements are draped with Virginian creeper, and 
through the iron gates the garden smiles so invitingly 
that a friendly face seems to greet you on the threshold 
and beg you to enter. 

" Nature," says De Brosses, " has treated the Giusti 
Palace handsomely by giving it in its very garden rocks 
and numbers of prodigiously tall, pointed cypresses, 
which make it look Hke one of those places where 
sorcerers hold their Sabbaths." The park has changed 
very Uttle since the visit of the intelligent Dijonnais 
magistrate, to whom Verona recalled Lyons and the 
hill of the Fonrviere. Valery, the King's Librarian at 
Versailles, found it in 1827 occupied by an Austrian 
battalion, and the only thought suggested to him by the 
cypress avenue — -one of the most beautiful in the world — • 
was that "its successive terraces once used for the purpose 
of drying cloth, recall the time when the preparation of 
wool was a noble craft which entailed no loss of 
caste." 

The characteristic feature of the gardens of Verona 
and Florence, Bellagio, Genoa, and Rome, is that they 



THE CYPEESS AVENUE 157 

are placed on hill-sides and laid out in terraces. Our 
footsteps like our dreams rise ever higher. The parks of 
the Ile-de-France and Touraine, on the other hand, extend 
on vast surfaces, flat, or slightly undulating ; their lines 
develop majestically and produce a harmony somewhat 
cold and severe, like the fine periods of Racine or Bossuet. 
Here, the villas have the uneasy aspect of the souls that 
created them, and those whose sensibility is not excited 
by surroundings will not appreciate their charm to the 
full. The vistas of Versailles are never seen to better 
advantage than in calm and solitude. The Italian 
avenues with their abrupt windings, their corners of 
sunshine, or shadow, their heavy scents, are attuned to 
the moods of passionate and restless hearts. 

The perfume of the flowers flows out as day declines. 
The lawns are studded with beds of pinks. Clumps of 
crimson salvias blaze fiercely in the slanting rays of the 
sun. Great red and yellow cannas and pink gladioli 
bend from the tops of their long stalks as if exhausted. 
Lichens eat into the statues which rise among the 
foliage, the only figures in this dream-landscape. The 
marble is scaling. The trunks of old trees are drying 
up and dying under the embrace of the stout ivy branches. 
A moss-grown fountain weeps for the days that are no 
more. But a gardener's cottage covered with roses and 
wisteria speaks of realities. It adjoins a wall overgrown 
with jasmine ; the foHage is starred with white flakes, 
as after a snow-shower in April. On the first terraces in 
the most sunny corners oleanders, orange-trees and 
palms strike a warmer note. And on every side blossom- 
ing tuberoses send out heavy waves of perfume, subtly 
intoxicating on this September afternoon. 

But the glory of the garden is the cypress-avenue, 
which climbs the hill, mounting from terrace to terrace. 
You enter it gravely. Mystery hovers round you. I 



158 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

know not what solemn influence is at work, checking 
all inclination to jest and laugh. When you climb the 
red brick stair, your companion's arm presses yours 
more closely. You read the inscriptions on the trees : 
300, 400, 500 years, and your heart sinks. Three, four, 
five centuries and more have gone by before the immov- 
able serenity of these venerable cypresses ! And you 
gaze almost fearfully at these trees, dark as night, 
rigid, impenetrable to the light and even to the wind 
which bends them without loosening their leaves, 
insensible to the seasons, proud and unchanging, rising 
heavenward stiff and hostile, indifferent to all around 
them. And yet, from above the palace walls they saw 
Verona quivering in the joy of triumph, or writhing under 
the heel of the conqueror. Unheeding sentinels, they 
remember none of these things. They merely play 
their decorative part. Their only function is to live, 
lonely and sterile. We admire them, but we do not 
love them. 

As we mount higher we get a wider view of the town 
and the famous plain where Constantine defeated the 
army of Maxentius, where Theodoric vanquished Odoacer, 
where Charlemagne led his victorious march. From the 
topmost terrace, the guide points out with emotion the 
battle-field of Custozza and the tower of Solferino, the 
Spia deir Italia, whence the Austrian soldiers watched 
the enemy ; useless now, it looks down only on liberated 
lands. There are few places in the world where there has 
been more fighting than on the banks of this Adige, 
which we can see rushing impetuously out of the long 
valley where it has been pent, and, as if tired of having 
followed a straight line so long, doubling back in an 
elegant and supple curve. Here we note the admirable 
position of Verona ; situated at the foot of the Alps, 
encircled and defended by its wide torrential moat, it 



VIEW OF VERONA 159 

commands the Venetian plain and guards the entrance 
to Lombardy. 

The view is almost the same as from the castle of San 
Pietro. Verona spreads out below with its towers and 
belfries. The high wall of the amphitheatre casts an 
immensely elongated shadow. The cupola of San 
Giorgio in Braida gUtters in the last rays of the sun. 
The bricks of the ancient bridge of the Scaligers seem to 
be stained with clotted blood. The quays of the Adige 
show the dark red tones of the sunburnt beggars of 
Naples. The rushing river is divined rather than seen ; 
in places it gleams like a damascened shield, as Carducci 
has described it : 

Tal mormoravi possente o rapido 
sotto i romani ponti, o verde Adige, 
briUando dal limpido gorgo, 
la tua scorrente canzone al sole.^ 

To the right are the Brescian Alps, the sharp peak of 
the Pizzocolo and the mountains that overhang Lake 
Garda. In front lies the immense plain with its culti- 
vated undulations, whence little towns, belfries and 
villages emerge. The towers of Mantua are clearly 
visible on the horizon, and sometimes in bright 
weather even the line of the Apennines appears. To 
the east, the hills are so near that they hide Vicenza 
and Padua ; but the plain stretches away as far as the 
eye can reach, to the lagoons and the sea which we 
divine on the horizon. 

A whole section of Italy is there under my eyes, with 
the glorious town recHning in graceful majesty in the 
foreground. The Veronese are very proud of their 
city, which they often call the Florence of the North. 

^ Thus, O green Adige, thou munnuredst strong and rapid, 
under the Roman bridges, sending up to the sun thy rippling 
song, and gleaming from limpid depths. 



160 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

A 17th century engraving represents it with a Latin 
inscription which may be rendered thus : " If he who 
beholds thee does not at once love thee desperately, 
he has neither a sense of art nor a sense of love. ' ' Charle- 
magne thought it so beautiful that he adjudged it the 
only city worthy of his son Pepin, who reigned there 
forty years. It is pleasant to encounter here memories 
of a Frank adored by his people and long lamented, 
who still Uves in a statue of the Cathedral porch, and in 
a fresco of the exquisite Church of San Zeno, whose 
campanile rises through the clear evening air near the 
ramparts. 

We can only really love and understand a city we have 
looked on from a height. We cannot get an idea of it 
as a whole from a tower set in the midst of it ; all this 
can give us is a series of views necessarily restricted and 
incomplete. The most perfect visions of the cities of 
Italy are obtained on the heights that overlook them. 
From these, each one seems to be concentrating all its 
powers to please us, and marshalling all its notes for a 
deliberate and definitive harmony. Seen from this 
spot, Verona reveals a design we can never forget. The 
labyrinth of streets and squares which seemed so 
compHcated co-ordinates itseK, the tangle of roofs, 
churches and palaces, takes its true significance, becomes 
simple and familiar. Teacher of beauty, the city con- 
tracts so harmoniously that we feel as if we could 
almost seize it in our hands and lift it to our lips. 

As the sun sinks, the bricks redden and burn, the 
painted windows gleam. Strong purple tints float in 
the air, a warm glow bathes the plain, and rosy mists 
cling to the cypresses. It is a Poussin evening, grave 
and noble, a fairy scene in which a city rises trium- 
phantly in the glory of the setting sun. One by one the 
church bells begin to clang and peal. It is the eve of 



|THE CITY OF PALACES 161 

the 8th of September, the feast of the Nativity of the 
Virgin. The vibrations clash, mingle, and melt into an 
uninterrupted booming which seems to be raising a 
sonorous vault over the city, between us and the 
houses. 

Often, seated in the lower part of the garden, near an 
ancient Venus, I have seen day fading, and darkness 
gradually creeping over successive terraces. And, as 
the west grows golden, the tops of the cypresses stand 
out more darkly, like motionless spindles stiffening in a 
bath of gold. 

To-day I wanted to see Verona falling to sleep from 
the upper terraces. An impalpable mist, growing 
denser each moment, like a winding sheet spread out 
by invisible hands, is drawn over the roofs, drowning 
all details. Public buildings, churches, squares, the 
quays of the Adige are still distinct. Darkness simplifies 
even more than altitude. Only the essential things 
remain. Our eyes are filled with a vision which will be 
lasting, because it finds a refuge in the depths of our 
being, because at this solemn hour before nightfall 
we behold with all our faculties, with our minds and 
hearts. 



CHAPTER II 

VICENZA 

It is the city of palaces ; this is literally true ; I 
think no city can boast finer buildings, or greater 
architects. It is, indeed, interesting to note that even 

M 



162 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

without Palladio, Vicenza would play a part in the 
history of architecture. Long before him, superb 
Gothic houses were built in the town, and a fagade still 
standing here and there attests their splendour. The 
three Formentons were famous artists, and Trissino, 
whose name has survived, wrote a didactic treatise to 
which Palladio paid homage. 

There is a whole series of interesting buildings at 
Vicenza forming a kind of prelude to the work of the 
Master. The splendour of his achievements makes us 
over-forgetful of his predecessors during the first 
Renaissance, and yet, by revealing to us the taste of the 
Vicenzans for fine architecture, they explain his vocation 
and his brilliant career in his native place. PaUadio, 
indeed, in spite of his taste for travel (he studied most of 
the monuments of antiquity in sitUy at Rome, Ancona, 
Pola, Spalato, Ravenna, Susa and even at Nimes) 
reserved the efforts of his genius almost exclusively for 
a city so apt to appreciate them. Outside Vicenza, 
Venice — -which owes to him the Church of the Redentore, 
San Giorgio Maggiore and the fa9ade of San Francesco 
della Vigna — -and Venetia, where he built a few villas, 
it may be said that there is no important work by 
Palladio. Vicenza was a sufficient field for his activity ; 
never was a city better prepared to understand an 
artist, nor an artist better fitted to be understood 
thereby. His death was lamented unanimously. The 
poetess Isicratea Monti composed a sonnet in which she 
declared that Palladio had been summoned to Paradise 
" to make it more beautiful." The gossip repeated by 
President de Brosses is absolutely baseless. ' ' Palladio, ' ' 
he says, " having been slighted by the nobility of his 
birthplace avenged himself by introducing a taste for 
fa9ades so magnificent, that those for whom he made 
designs were all ruined by their execution." 



PALLADIO'S INFLUENCE 163 

The taste for architecture persisted in Vicenza after 
Palladio, whose teaching was the best guarantee against 
Baroque excesses. Thanks to him that sense of propor- 
tion which is so characteristic of most of the buildings 
of Upper Italy was preserved. The disastrous influence 
of Bernini, the Borromini, and the Vanvitelli is scarcely 
perceptible in this region. After the Master's pupils, 
of whom Scamozzi was the most distinguished, there was 
a period of eclipse ; but as early as 1700, Palladio once 
more became the accepted oracle ; Ottone Calderari 
revived his tradition and gave new lustre to Vincenzan 
architecture. 

Thus the streets of the city are a veritable museum, 
open to all. To walk about in them is to contemplate 
masterpieces. In this town, which has little more than 
40,000 inhabitants, we shall find a hundred palaces or 
buildings of great interest. We can understand the 
enthusiasm it has excited among art-critics and men of 
letters. If some have exaggerated, saying that it was 
at once the Athens and the Corinth of Italy, Ranalli 
might well exclaim in his History of the Fine Arts : " O 
veramente aventurosa Vicenza ! Altre potranno vincerti 
di grandezza e potenza, niuna di leggiadria et di 
bellezza ! i " 

Not having known the splendours of Court life, 
Vicenza has none of that air of melancholy and decay 
characteristic of certain towns which were capitals and 
nothing else, like Parma, or Mantua. Its splendour, 
which was less dazzling, was more durable. And 
though its streets are bordered with palaces, it does not 
impress one as do those Italian cities described by 
Madame de Stael, " which look as if they had been pre- 
pared for the reception of great lords who were to have 

1 ** O truly fortunate Vicenza 1 Others may surpass thee in 
size and power, but none in grace and beauty." 

M 2 



164 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

arrived, but who have been preceded by a few persons of 
their suite only." 

Moreover, the situation of Vicenza is charming, at 
the confluence of the Retrone and the BacchigUone, in 
a fresh valley, between the last spurs of the Alps and the 
verdant slopes of the Berici mountains. It is, indeed, 
to quote Courajod, " a spot blessed by Heaven, one of 
those nests prepared by Nature for the hatching of 
Italian Art, which did not fail to take possession of it in 
the spring -tide of the Renaissance. 

When Palladio appeared, that spring-tide was long 
past. The Renaissance had triumphed everywhere. 
And yet a new era was beginning for architecture. 
After the golden age, after the great builders, among 
whom Bramante is conspicuous, we find during the 
second half of the 16th century a pleiad of architects, 
the most distinguished^of whom is the master of Vicenza. 
They were primarily theorists. They curbed the bold 
and sometimes fantastic imagination of their predecessors 
by canons which fixed the proportions, the dimensions 
and the ornament of each Order. They were not equal 
to these predecessors in richness of invention, original 
inspirations, charming audacities, and above all, a 
faculty for adapting profuse and elaborate decoration 
to grandiose lines. With them, detail was a secondary 
matter, and their great preoccupatipn was the general 
effect. Even their columns are merely facings which 
might be suppressed without robbing the structure 
of its character. Their art is a little cold, perhaps, but 
it is never mean, nor does it ever fall into the excesses of 
the Baroque Style, which abuses detail, diminishing 
or multiplying it solely with a view to the arbitrary 
effects at which it aims. 

PaUadio's only exemplars were the ancients ; but he 
did'^not copy them slavishly. No artist ever showed 



PALLADIO'S ART 165 

a more ardent devotion to antiquity, ever penetrated 
more deeply into the very essence of its monuments 
while preserving an absolute independence of manner, 
and adapting the old rules with perfect dexterity to 
modern requirements and a more highly developed 
sense of comfort. The powerful impression produced by 
his works comes from their severe simpUcity and the 
constant subordination of parts to the whole. The 
secret of his radiantly intelligent art is the extreme 
propriety of its terms. In spite of the formulas he 
propounded, he never repeated himself. No artist is 
more varied in his apparent unity ; each of his buildings, 
each of his f a9ades even, has its individual character. He 
reduced the exuberant decoration which was in favour 
at the beginning of the Renaissance to its proper limits, 
and was careful never to disturb the rhythm of lines by 
fancifulness of ornament. He is, perhaps, the only 
architect who never sought an effect of decorative 
detail, whose sole aims were logical arrangement and 
perfect proportions. Hence no teaching has been more 
productive than his. When Michelangelo exclaimed with 
all the divination of genius : " My learning will create 
a nation of ignoramuses ! " he felt that the audacities 
upon which he ventured were only permissible to himself, 
and that his masterpieces bore within them the germs 
of dissolution and death for lesser artists who should 
try to imitate them. Palladio, who sacrificed only to 
logic, could write his great work / quattro Libri delV 
Architettura with perfect assurance, and establish laws 
he knew to be eternal. 

Not the least of his titles to fame is the fact that he 
was the first to give Goethe a concrete image of classic 
art. No master could have been better fitted to instruct 
the great German, who, seeking antique beauty, was 
primarily susceptible to architecture. At Verona, which 



166 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

he visited before Vicenza, the amphitheatre alone 
aroused his enthusiasm. The painters had no great 
interest for the man who at Assisi noticed nothing but 
the ruins of the temple of Minerva ; he, himself, admits 
this quite frankly : "I confess that I know little of the 
art and craft of the painter ; so my observations will be 
confined to the practical part, that is to say, subjects, 
and the manner in which they are treated." 

I have made many sojourns at Vincenza in the past, and 
this year I proposed to study more especially those 
buildings by Palladio which had appealed most strongly 
to Goethe, and to trace their influence on his genius. 

On his arrival at Vicenza on 19th September, 1786, 
Goethe went at once to the Teatro Ohmpico . He thought 
it " inexpressibly beautiful," and at once pronounced 
its author " essentially a great man." Few buildings, 
indeed, produce such a strong effect as this, the last 
jewel bequeathed by PaUadio to his native city. Who, 
that has seen it, can forget the grace of the elliptical 
interior, the colonnade above the seats with its entabla- 
ture of statues, and, above all, the superb fa9ade of the 
proscenium, in which the master sought to give a sum- 
mary of his genius, enriching it with all his science and 
all his art. He had the happiness of seeing its comple- 
tion before he closed his eyes. The two super-posed 
Orders and the attic are supremely elegant. Three 
magnificent bays open on to the stage, carrying out a 
formula dear to the architect, i.e., a large central door, 
high and wide, with an arch, and two lower and narrower 
lateral doors. The building was finished by Scamozzi 
from Palladio 's plans ; he completed it by designing the 
scenery, which represents, it is said, the road to Thebes. 

The success of the undertaking was immense. All 
Italy envied this theatre, in which the works of the 
most famous authors were acted. When one of 



THE TEATRO OLIMPICO 167 

the last of the Gonzagas, the strange Vespasiano, 
wanted a theatre for his capital, Sabbioneta, which he 
had built in exact imitation of Athens, he asked Scamozzi 
to reproduce that of Vicenza for him. Nor has admira- 
tion waned with the lapse of years. When Napoleon 
entered the theatre, some years later than Goethe, he 
turned to the Queen of Bavaria, who was with him, and 
said : " Madame, we are in Greece." It was, in fact, 
the love of Greece and of antiquity which had inspired 
the work. An " Olympic Academy " of which Palladio 
was one of the promoters, had been founded at Vincenza 
in 1556, with the object of reviving interest in master- 
pieces. The architect was invited to build a wooden 
theatre in the Basilica for the representation of a 
Sophonisba by his friend and protector, Trissino. The 
success was so great that the members of the Academy 
determined to build at their own expense the actual 
theatre on a site generously given to them by the 
Commune of Vicenza. It was inaugurated in 1585 
with the representation of an CEdipus, translated by 
Orsata Justiniani, a Venetian noble. Among the actors 
was that Verato for whom Tasso wrote one of his finest 
sonnets ; and in the last act, the part of CEdipus was 
played by Luigi Grotto, the dramatic author, who had 
been blind from his birth. Justiniani's verses were, 
no doubt, mediocre, but this mattered little. The 
Vicenzans had thrilled to antique beauty. 

The Basilica, which next claimed Goethe's admiration, 
is perhaps the architectural masterpiece of the 16th 
century. Burckhardt declares that at Venice it would 
have wholly eclipsed Sansovino's Libreria, one of the 
gems of the Piazza di San Marco. It is, in any case, 
the marvel of that Piazza dei Signori which is so pictur- 
esquely completed by the Loggia del Capitanio, the 
Church of San Vicente, the Bertoliana Library, the great 



168 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

red brick tower, and the two white marble columns, 
on one of which the Venetian lion stiU asserts the ancient 
might of the City of the Doges. Vicenza, whose passion 
for fine buildings was so pronounced, had, of course, 
long dreamed of restoring its old communal palace. 
Many plans had been submitted. All the architects 
of the region, those who had adorned Venice : Sansovino, 
the creator of the Libreria ; Riccio, who had built the 
inner fa9ade of the Doge's Palace and the Giant's Stair- 
case ; Spaventa, the author of the Procuratie ; 
Sanmicheli and Giulio Romano urged the adoption of 
their designs. PaUadio himself sent in four, and it 
was one of these which was accepted. The architect 
was barely thirty years old at the time ; no career ever 
began more gloriously. This gigantic work occupied 
three-quarters of a century and the master did not live 
to finish it ; but it was so far advanced before his death 
that he had no doubts as to its beauty. Never was his 
genius more fully displayed. He was not called upon 
to build a palace from a conception of his own brain ; 
he had to make use of the old walls, consohdate and 
extend them, and yet to produce an entirely new, 
sumptuous and original whole. Intelligence, science, 
invention, skill and flexibility of the highest order were 
necessary for such a task ; PaUadio possessed them all 
to a degree nothing short of astounding in view of the 
difficulties he had to overcome. We are dazzled by 
so much splendour and majesty ; we ask ourselves 
above all how such a result could have been obtained by 
lines so simple, and relatively so bare of ornament. 
The two-storeyed porticoes of his design solve the prob- 
lem involved to perfection. It is impossible to imagine 
more complete harmony between the new facing and 
the internal pillars which support the original structure. 
No one ignorant of the history of the building could 



THE ROTUNDA 169 

imagine that the actual fa9ades were not the faces it 
once presented to the world. The arches rest on slender 
coupled columns, which enlarge the openings and give 
lightness to the general effect ; they are Doric in the 
lower storey and Ionic in the upper, with entablatures 
to correspond, in accordance with Palladio's favourite 
formula, a formula to which he has given his name ; for 
a long time no other was admitted ; it was universal 
at that period, even in buildings imagined by painters, 
as for instance in Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi, 
where architecture plays such an important part. 

The Rotunda delighted Goethe even more than the 
Teatro Olimpico and the Basilica. It is approached 
by the walk which is one of the chief attractions of 
Vicenza, a wide avenue shaded by fine chestnuts and 
flanked by a portico over 2,000 feet long, which rises 
on the slope of Monte Berico and ends at the culminating 
point, the Church of the Madonna del Monte, There 
are ^-indows in the walls at intervals, with unexpected 
glimpses of the town and of the hills on which the heroic 
comrades of Daniele Manini fell in 1848. The country 
people ascend on donkeys, or in odd little carts with 
seats fixed in the middle. As we mount, the view 
extends over the plain towards Bassano and Padua, a 
vast green expanse covered with vines, punctuated by 
the black spears of cypresses and the campaniles of the 
nearest villages. Half way up the incline, at the inter- 
section of another road, the avenue makes a bend, 
curving into a sort of terrace, whence there is a magni- 
ficent panorama of Vicenza with its sea of red roofs 
dominated by the cupola of the cathedral, the imposing 
mass of the Basilica, the upper arcades of which are 
clearly visible, and the graceful silhouette of the tower, 
which seems to be watching over the city like the bel- 
fries of Flemish towns. 



170 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

To get to the Rotunda we must quit the portico and 
take a strange little path paved with cobble stones 
which runs between walls, first high and bare as those 
of a prison, and then gay with draperies of Virginian 
creeper. We skirt the Villa Fogazzaro, where the 
famous writer pursues his noble meditations, and the 
Villa Valmarana, where Tieopolo's frescoes slumber. 
The walls are crowned by the grotesque grimacing 
figures which abound in the villas of the district, notably 
those on the banks of the Brenta. It was an odd fancy 
of the people of the 18th century to set up these deformed 
guardians of their homes along their walls. The stone 
crumbles away from day to day, and sometimes it is 
difficult to make out the oddly dressed and contorted 
mannikins. Then the path becomes rural. The pave- 
ment makes way for grass, dappled with aromatic mint. 
Pines and cypresses shoot up from behind the walls. 
We cross a road and we are before the Rotunda. 

Alas I visitors are no longer admitted. The Signora 
madre to whom it belonged died, they tell me, a month 
or two ago, and her son and successor will not allow it 
to be shown. However, we may go into the gardens. 
We shall not be able to see the rooms, but this is unim- 
portant. The masterpiece is the building itself and the 
exquisite site it adorns, the most agreeable spot imagin- 
able, amenissimo, as Palladio himself declared. These 
Renaissance houses were, indeed, built primarily for 
the delight of the eye. In fact, this has always been the 
case in Italy. Read the letter in which Pliny the 
Younger described his beloved Laurentum, you will 
see that the question of a spacious and comfortable 
lodging was quite a secondary one. The desideratum 
was not a French chateau, nor one of the comfortable 
structures of Northern countries, but merely a villaj that 
is to say, a place of repose and enjoyment, where life 



THE ROTUNDA 171 

would be gay and full of sunshine. Paolo Almerico, 
who had this Rotunda built, was a simple churchman, 
the Referendary of Popes Pius V. and Pius VI. The 
domain passed later to the Marchese di Capra, whose 
name is still legible above the main entrance. 

The building is a square, each side of which is faced 
by a peristyle of six Ionic columns supporting a triangular 
pediment adorned with statues. Within this square is 
a circular hall on the ground level, entered by four doors 
corresponding to the peristyles, which form so many 
little terraces offering views in every direction. And 
this is the secret of the incomparable charm of this 
Rotunda ; the prospect on every side is admirable. 
On the north, the undulating plain of Vicenza, the line 
of the Alps forming a majestic background ; on the 
west, the slopes dominated by the Madonna del Monte ; 
on the south, the green flanks of the Berici hills ; but 
the finest view of all is from the terrace on the east 
guarded by three ancient eagles and a swan in stone ; 
we see the entire valley of the Brenta as far as Padua 
and the Euganean Hills, which are distinguishable on a 
clear day. In the foreground all around the Rotunda 
are gardens, fields, meadows, clumps of flowers and 
thickets of lilacs which form a scented girdle in spring- 
time. 

The melancholy thought of the flight of time and the 
fragility of joy was nowhere and at no period more in 
evidence than in Italy at the time of the Renaissance. 
Di doman non c'e certezza (there is no certainty of to- 
morrow) said Lorenzo de' Medici in his poem. And, so, 
in the midst of the gravest events and the direst catas- 
trophes the rich and cultured thought only of enjoying 
themselves in peace. This morning at this viUa, I 
think of that Luigi Cornaro, who had witnessed the most 
terrible warfare and the sack of Padua, and, who, in his 



172 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

treatise, DellaVita Sohria, drew up what may be described 
as the code of the perfect dilettante. How lovingly he 
describes his " fair house at Padua, so marvellously 
situated, so skilfully protected from the heat of summer 
and the rigour of winter, with its gardens watered by 
running stream^." In spring and autumn he knew 
no greater pleasure than a few weeks in his viUa, on a 
hill " whence there is an exquisite view of the Euganean 
Hills." Nearly all the Italian poets — ^except Dante 
and Leopardi, whose widely divergent pessimisms are 
to be explained by very personal causes — 'have sung the 
joy of life. The appetite for pleasure in this country 
often becomes a kind of delirium, a frenzy which made 
Goethe say one Shrove Tuesday evening : "I seem to 
have spent this day with madmen." In no country 
were public festivities of greater importance, and the 
greatest artists rivalled each other in contributing to 
such displays. Palladio himself designed the triumphal 
arch erected at Venice in 1574 for the reception of Henry 
III. The Carnival, torchlight processions, and fireworks 
are Italian inventions. Here at Vicenza itseM, a chroni- 
cler of the 14th century speaks of a fete given by the 
CoUege of Notaries, when " a firework composition went 
off with such a din that most of those present fell back- 
wards, overcome by terror ; it represented in fiery 
outHne the Holy Spirit, the Prophets^ and a flaming 
dove descending upon the altar." 

Moreover, in spite of war and pillage, these Lombardo- 
Venetian provinces were always rich. Even in the hard 
years of the 14th and 15th centuries the Communes 
found it necessary to pass sumptuary laws. The indus- 
try of precious stuffs developed so greatly that towns 
like Vicenza sent annually to Venice over a hundred 
pieces of gold and silver brocade. It is comprehensible 
enough that nobles and citizens so well-to-pass should 



GOETHE AT VICENZA 173 

have commissioned Palladio to build them the palaces 
of Vicpnza, and the sumptuous country houses of which 
only the ruins now remain. For, alas ! here everything 
is perishing ! The statues, the columns, the staircases, 
the walls are crumbling. Grass grows between the 
disjointed stones and bricks. I remember that long 
ago I used to wish some rich purchaser would restore 
the Rotunda. But now I no longer venture on such a 
wish. It would perhaps be the worst thing that could 
befaU it, the surest death sentence of all this beauty. 
Better that this villa should not be repaired, renewed, 
modernised, lighted by electricity . . . The utmost 
we should wish is that its decay should be arrested, 
that this vestige of a bygone splendour and period 
should be preserved as long as possible without any 
modification of its character. 

There is a majesty in the structure which explains 
Goethe's enthusiasm. " I do not think," he says, 
" that it would be possible to carry the luxury of archi- 
tecture farther. The four peristyles and the stairs 
occupy more space than the palace itseK. Each of the 
fa9ades would make an imposing entrance to a temple. 
.... The proportions of the circular hall are admirable" 
He also praises the art with which the site was chosen. 
" Not only is the building to be seen in aU its magni- 
ficence from every point of the surrounding country, 
but the view from the Rotunda itself is most delighful. 
One sees the BacchigUone flowing onward, carrying 
boats to the Brenta." 

I think that on this 2l8t September, 1786, the path 
that leads to the Rotunda was perhaps Goethe's road to 
Damascus. The Privy Councillor and Prime Minister 
of Duke Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar, travelling 
under the name of Johann PhiHpp MoUer, had left 
Germany without informing his friends, consumed by 



174 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

a burning, almost a morbid desire to see Italy. He 
confesses this in one of the first letters he wrote after 
crossing the frontier. " For several years, " he writes 
from Venice on the 12th of October, " I could not bear 
to see a Latin author, or to look at anything which re- 
minded me of Italy. When this happened by accident, I 
suffered horribly. Herder sometimes laughed at me for 
learning all my Latin from Spinoza ; he had noticed 
that this was the only Latin book I read ; he did not 
know how I was obliged to be on my guard against the 
ancients, and that I took refuge in these abstruse 
generalities with anguish in my heart. . . If I had 
not made the decision I am now carrying out, I should 
have been utterly undone, so passionately was my 
soul possessed by the desire to see Italy with my own 
eyes." For ten years, absorbed in poUtical, and adminis- 
trative affairs, he had published scarcely anythrug. At 
most he had sketched out one or two great works. He 
felt that these skeletons could not take on flesh and live 
in the German surroundings which were stifling him, 
in the gossiping Court illuminated only by the clear 
eyes of Charlotte von Stein ; they needed Italian sun. 
He felt that he must see the spots where the immortal 
masterpieces were born, know classic beauty, not merely 
in the spirit and in books, but in itself, and stand face 
to face with the buildiugs it had inspired. Among the 
papers he took away with him were some fragments of 
dramas and poems, a few scenes of his Tasso, which 
had been laid aside for years. But the most voluminous 
of the bundles was the manuscript of Iphigenia. She, 
the Greek maiden whom he called " the child of my 
sufferings," was only to come to life on classic ground. 
And, indeed, three months later, at the beginning of 
January, 1787, the piece was finished, and he read it 
to his friends in Rome. He tells us himseK that crossing 




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GOETHE AT PALLADIO 175 

the Brenner, he had taken it out from his luggage so 
as to have it constantly under his hand. A few days later 
the maiden awoke to life herseK, far from Northern mists, 
in the magnolia thickets of Lake Garda. " On these 
shores," he writes, " where I felt as lonely as my heroine 
on the shores of Tauris, I marked out the plan." 
But it was here at Vicenza that he had his revelation of 
Latin genius, here that his wondering eyes opened to 
Beauty and to Reason as those of Faust opened to 
recovered youth, and here that he had the first clear 
and luminous vision of the tragedy he meant to write, 
Palladio worked the miracle. 

Goethe's enthusiasm for the great architect was such 
that he was greatly interested in seeing at old Ottavio 
Scamozzi's house, the original woodcuts for the Works 
of Palladio which Scamozzi had just published. And a 
little later, at Padua, he bought a new edition of these 
Works with copperplate engravings, due to the pious 
care of an English Consul at Venice, named Smith, 
whom he pronounced, " a man of great merit, too early 
taken away from the friends of art," and to whom he 
paid further homage in the cemetery of the Lido. The 
citizen of Frankfort was much astonished to note the 
reverence in which Palladio was held by all. When he 
entered the shop there were five or six persons who at 
once began to compliment him on his acquisition. 
" Taking me for an architect," he says, " they congratu- 
lated me on my desire to study Palladio, who, in their 
opinion, ranked far higher than Vitruvius, because he 
had penetrated more deeply into antiquity, and had 
succeeded in making it applicable to modern times." 

To penetrate antiquity and apply it to the needs of 
modem times was surely first the secret desire and then 
the sole endeavour of Goethe himself. To maintain 
tradition, to enlarge the laws of antique wisdom by 



176 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

modern science were in short the identical aims of 
Goethe and of Palladio. Both, in common with all 
true artists and all true writers, sought to solve the 
eternal problem of reconciling immutable law and 
mutable life, to conquer the eternal difficulty, which is, 
says Barres " to have a style and yet remain true and 
natural." Was it not of himself that the author of 
Dichtung und Wahrheit was thinking when he said of 
Palladio : " His conceptions have a touch of the divine, 
akin to the creative power of the poet, who from a 
mixture of truth and falsehood, brings forth a new work 
whose borrowed life enchants us.'* 

And this was why IpMgenia became the drama of 
Goethe himself, the drama of a mind in quest of order 
and beauty, at first obscured by Germanic chaos, then 
calmed by the Greco-Latin genius and its supreme 
equilibrium. Confronting Orestes and his romantic fury 
he set the radiant figure of Iphigenia, the type of antique 
Wisdom and R-eason. ThuSj when he read the work to 
German artists they were astonished. " They were 
expecting something like Goetz von Berlichingen," says 
Goethe, " and they found it difficult to accustom them- 
selves to the calm and regular march of Iphigenia." 

Goethe came to Italy to deliver himself from Weimar ; 
in less than a year, the evolution was accomplished. 
Begun at Vicenza, it was completed in Rome. "It is 
a year to-day," he writes, " since I left Carlsbad. What 
a memorable day ! It is the anniversary of my birth to 
a new life. I cannot reckon up all I have gained in the 
course of this year ; and, yet, I have only begun to 
understand." His joy overflows perpetually in his 
letters and in those Roman Elegies in which he put so 
much of himself. " How happy I am, " he exclaims at 
the beginning of the seventh of these, " when I think 
of the time in the North when a gray daylight wrapped 



CONEGLIANO 177 

me round, and a heavy, sullen sky pressed on my neck.** 
He had found internal peace and joy. The scales, 
as he said, had fallen from his eyes. He had bathed 
in the very well-springs of Beauty. Thenceforth his 
work was to have a deeper meaning ; it was to become, 
as Nietzsche has said, the only classic work of Germany. 
Is it not moving to think that it was here that he saw 
clearly for the first time, under the light of Latin skies, 
and before the buildings of Palladio ? 



CHAPTER III 

CONEGLIANO 

Few cities present themselves so gaily and seductively 
to the traveller as does Conegliano. Standing where 
the Vittorio road debouches, on the last spur of the Pre- 
Alps, whence it dominates the valley of the Piave, its 
outskirts are extraordinarily attractive ; it seems to 
hold out its arms and invite the visitor to enter. It is 
not unusual in Italy to find towns which have pre- 
served their ramparts, while relieving them of their 
martial aspect by planting them with trees and trans- 
forming them into shady walks. Conegliano has 
done better still ; on the side that overlooks the plain 
it has built its houses on the foundations of the old walls, 
and transformed the moats into smiling gardens which 
form a half circle of flowers and greenery. On the other 
side the village climbs the hill side in terraces, overlooked 
by a battlemented castle whose pink bricks appear 
between the cypress spears. 

N 



178 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

It is rather difficult to find the entrance to the cathe- 
dral, and, I am obliged to ask my way. I light upon the 
most charming of men who at once lays aside his own 
occupations to guide me, and is lavish of attentions. 
I recall Musset's pretty definition of Italy in BeUinCt 
as " that country of charming, kindly, honest, hospitable 
freedom, under the splendid sun where one man's 
shadow has never been in the way of another, and where 
one makes a friend by asking the way." The door of 
the Cathedral opens from a kind of portico adjoining 
private houses and shops. The church itself is small 
and of little interest ; but it contains a masterpiece, 
one of the best pictures of Conegliano's most famous 
son, the good painter Cima, I love those towns and 
buildings to which one journeys to see a single work, 
especially when that work is still in the very place for 
which it was conceived and executed ; the fact that it 
is unique and that you have been put to some trouble 
to see it gives it a special charm which it would not 
have had in a museum among many others. I find 
the picture on a temporary altar, pending certain 
repairs that are being made in the choir, which it had 
not quitted since the day that Cima painted it. The 
light is very good, especially in the morning, and shows 
the magnificient composition and the warm colour to 
advantage. I can think of no Madonna with a nobler 
face. The six Saints are also full of dignity and majesty ; 
if they have a fault it is perhaps that they are a little 
stiff, a little wanting in vitality. Two little angel 
musicians at the foot of the throne are exquisite in their 
simplicity and gravity of attitude ; their flesh is of a 
beautiful olive tint. The picture is entirely filled up 
with figures, which is unusual for Cima, who habitually 
painted delightful landscape backgrounds, notably 
views of the hill of Conegliano. There is no smiling 



CIMA DA CONEGLIANO 179 

grace in this work ; he seems to have put all the gravity 
of his soul into this altarpiece for the church of his native 
place. The Madonna and Saints in the Accademia at 
Venice reproduces practically the same subject, with the 
addition of a landscape, but, as it seems to me, with 
less emotion. In both canvases we note the somewhat 
childish symmetry which makes Perugino's works so 
cold ; the equilibrium is the result less of the adjustment 
of the masses of colour than of the similarity of the 
personages on either side of the principal group. 

The Conegliano picture dates from the end of the 
fifteenth century ; it is only a few years earlier than the 
first masterpieces of Giorgione and Titian. Cima 
remained the pupil of Vivarini. True, he was influenced 
by Giovanni Bellini, but he never sought to surpass him, 
as did his illustrious rivals, disciples like himself of the 
Venetian master. Cima was always a Primitive. He 
is perhaps the only Venetian in whom we divine some- 
thing of Tuscan or Umbrian fervour. He has been 
called the Masaccio of Venice, which is an exaggeration, 
for were it true he would be in the forefront of the 
Quattrocento painters. He did not go so far as Masaccio ; 
he was no innovator ; but no one surpassed him in ten- 
derness and religious poetry. He was a moderate, a 
discreet dreamer, a calm spirit. He belonged to that 
category of artists who are faithful all their lives to the 
ideal of their youth, and thus very soon seem to be 
behind the times. 

Leaving the church, I climbed up to the Castle, all 
rosy in the warm light. The way is through narrow 
tortuous streets without side-walk, paved with sharp 
cobbles, under arcades and vaults that seem ready to 
fall on one, up flights of ruined steps. Heavy doors 
open on to tiny gardens. Faces are enframed in windows 
gay with geraniums. Here and there a few modem 

N 2 



180 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

shop-fronts, in spite of their miserable appearance, have 
an alien look in the solitary streets where one is startled 
by the noise of one's own footsteps. The soul of the 
past hovers round these ancient buildings. And there 
is something intensely poignant about these homes 
of an ancient city where nothing has changed ; the con- 
trast is the more striking when, leaving the new quarters 
sunning themselves joyously, we enter the city of the past 
which suffocated for centuries between mountain and 
ramparts. There the fa9ades have grave faces like those 
of old men, in which we read the melancholy born ol 
having seen too much, and of thoughts turned ever 
upon death. After the last houses, the path skirts 
old rusty walls which the warm sunshine consoles for 
their abandonment. Betv/een the disjointed stones 
spring the fine grasses and mosses that grow only in 
solitude. 

From the terrace in front of the Castle there is a mag- 
nificent view of the Trevisan plain and the valley of 
the Piave ; the course of the stream slackens as it 
approaches the lagoons which on very clear days may 
be seen in the distance. Above the fields the delicate 
Venetian mist is already floating. To the North, the 
view extends to the first buttresses of the Alps, over a 
series of verdant hill-sides and wooded mountains, 
studded with villas and Uttle towns grouped round a 
bell-tower. The slopes are covered with famous vine- 
yards which produce a sparkling, perfumed wine ; 
nowhere are the vines better cultivated than at 
Conegliano, which is very proud of its Royal School of 
Viticulture. In the distance, the dying sun gilds one of 
those big white clouds in which the Greeks believed that 
the immortals concealed themselves when travelling 
through the ether, and which afterwards served painters 
of all schools for the scenes in which' God comes down to 



THE CASTELLO GARDEN 181 

earth. The rays of sunlight slip between the battle- 
ments and the trees like airy scarves. The tops of the 
tall cypresses sway very slightly in the breeze ; against 
the dazzling sky they look like the masts of a ship 
gently rocked by a calm sea. It is the unreal hour when 
things are decked in all the varying shades of pink, 
that fugitive and passing pink which is not a true colour, 
and recalls the uncertain tint of those wan blossoms 
which, in a bouquet of red and white flowers, look like 
softened reflections of the two. 

Through the iron gates, the inner courtyard of the 
Castle smiles so invitingly that I want to go in. A 
small huonamano overcomes the custodian's scruples. 
We may stay till nightfall in this old garden, so eloquent 
of the past with its cypresses, its oleanders, its walls of 
red brick burning in the last rays of light. The walks 
are narrow and ill-kept, but, gradually, the garden 
widens out. A soft haze rises from the warm earth, 
blurs all forms and spreads mystery round us. As the 
shadow grows denser, love takes on a sudden gravity. 
We cease talking, hushed by the silence of things. Ah ! 
the languor of those Italian evenings among the perfumes, 
the delight of a dear companionship when everything 
fades and seems about to die. Without another heart 
beside me, I could not await night in this old garden. 
I remember the words of Dumas the Elder, when, after 
his travels in Switzerland, he arrived at Lake Maggiore, 
felt all the horrors of solitude on the very first evening, 
and expressed his thoughts in this charming formula : 
" To hope or to fear for another is the only thing which 
gives man a complete sense of his own existence." In 
the turmoil and agitation of the day, we do not feel 
loneliness ; but in the peace of evening, wo cannot 
bear it. 

The wind has dropped completely. The spray of 



182 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

the cypresses hangs congealed agamst the dark sky. 
In the distance a fountain murmurs its eternal, mono- 
tonous song. Suddenly, a note breaks the silence. It is 
a belated nightingale that has lingered, beguiled no doubt 
by the tranquil charm of this summer garden. We do 
not see it ; it must be in that oleander thicket, on that 
branch that is stirring. It preludes timidly at first, 
repeats the same note softly, as if murmuring. It 
questions the darkness and listens to the silence. Then, 
believing itself alone, and intoxicated by the nocturnal 
sweetness around it, it bursts into full song. The 
trills follow one another, ever stronger ; they become 
cries of joy and of desire. It throws out piercing notes 
at intervals, the love-call becomes ever more clamant. 
And each time we tremble as did the lovers of Verona 
when they heard the nightingale singing on a pomegra- 
nate-tree in the garden of the Capulets. 



CHAPTER IV 

BASSANO 

Less elevated and less hemmed in by mountains 
than Belluno, yet higher above the Venetian plain than 
Conegliano, Bassano is admirably placed on the outlet 
of the Brenta. It has a very imposing appearance 
with its ruined ivy-grown ramparts, its promenade with 
enormous lime-trees, its red brick castle with square 
towers which evokes a most agitated and warlike past. 
Claimed and fought for successively by powerful neigh- 
bours, Vicenza, Padua, Verona and Milan, it only knew 



BRIDGE OF BASSANO 183 

peace during the four centuries of the Venetian domina- 
tion ; and it paid deariy for this term of tranquillity 
during the wars of the French Revolution and of the 
Empire. As it was necessary to hold it in order to secure 
passage or retreat, all the campaigns of the French 
army were marked by an episode here. In a few years 
the town was taken and retaken ten times. Ardently 
patriotic, it fought in the forefront together with Pieve 
and Belluno during the struggle for independence, and 
like them offered itself with spontaneous enthusiasm to 
the House of Savoy. 

Bassano's greatest pride is its old covered bridge, the 
history of which would require a chapter to itself. In 
the course of the last four centuries it has been necessary 
to rebuild it more than ten times, sometimes in stone, 
more often in wood ; it has been carried away by torrents, 
burnt or destroyed in warfare. The present bridge 
replaced that which Eugene Beauhamais burnt in 
1813 ; there are French bullets still imbedded in the 
stones of the piers. Shorter, but wider than that of 
Pavia over the Ticino, it has a good deal of character, 
especially as seen from the bed of the river. It com- 
pletes most picturesquely the picture formed by the 
city with its terraced houses and gardens, their founda- 
tions descending to the river which at times shakes 
them somewhat roughly. Above, the ancient fortress 
rises over the roofs and trees. The whole hill is reflected 
in the pure water, ruffled only by the darting flight of 
swallows hawking invisible insects. 

As at Pieve di Cadore, at Bassano we might look in vain 
for a straight, level street. The roads rise and wind 
and intersect in the most amusing entanglement. Some 
of them are, as it were, suspended over the valley. Gates 
open upon the country and seem to enframe the horizon. 
The little squares and terraces with glimpses of scenery 



184 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

which the inhabitants reserved for the delight of the eye, 
add greatly to the charm of the town. One of the most 
happily placed is the Piazza del Terraglio, whence 
Napoleon is said to have made his plan' for the battle. 
But no panorama equals that to be seen from the 
famous Balcone dell' Arciprete, in the presbytery of 
the Cathedral, which occupies a part of the buildings of 
the ancient citadel. The view extends in every direction. 
To the east the hills of Asolo slope gently towards the 
plain ; it was in the midst of them, at Possagno, that 
Canova was born ; a white marble building on the 
model of the Pantheon of Rome, contains works and 
copies of works by the sculptor, and also the perishable 
body of him whom his admirers ventured to compare 
to Michelangelo. To the north, behind a foreground 
of houses and gardens, the valley, studded with villas 
and little towns, is closed by an amphitheatre of moun- 
tains, which just leave room for the river to pass. To 
the left, the heights fringe the plateau of the Seven 
Communes, that strange country the inhabitants of 
which lived for centuries almost isolated from the ^est 
of the world, forming a German island in Italian terri- 
tory like that still existing to the north of Verona in 
the region of the Thirteen Communes. Further to the 
west, at the foot of the hills of Marostica, the plain 
stretches away towards Vicenza, as far as the Berici 
Mountains. 

The Museum of Bassano is of some importance. It 
contains notably a rich collection of the engravings of 
all countries, and a room devoted to the works of Canova, 
either originals or reproductions. But faithful to my 
habits, I intend to study the works of the Bassani only 
in this, their city. It is not surprising that they should 
be numerous, as there were no fewer than six painters 
bearing the name of Da Ponte. They were one of those 



THE DA PONTE FAMILY 185 

curious Italian families whose members from father to 
son, devoted themselves to the magic calling, la mirabile 
t darissima arte di pittura. And I recall the charming 
picture in the Uffizi, where Jacopo has represented 
himself with all his sons united in the worship of art. 

The six Da Pontes include the grandfather, Francesco, 
the father Jacopo, and the four sons, Francesco, Giam- 
battista, Leandro and Girolamo. Among these the 
only one who really counts is Jacopo ; he is the Bassano ; 
it is to him that a grateful city has raised a statue. His 
very numerous works are scattered throughout the 
galleries of Europe. The Museum of Bassano possesses 
a dozen, among them the S. Valentine baptising a young 
Girl, very warm in colour, and his masterpiece, the 
Nativity, a work of extraordinary freshness and richness ; 
the light is very skilfully concentrated on the Virgin, 
and the scene is set in a fine bluish landscape. It was 
in these compositions, at once devotional and rustic, that 
he excelled. Unfortunately nearly all his pictures have 
darkened very much, and so have become monotonous. 
No painter has excelled him as a craftsman, or in know- 
ledge of the secrets of his calling. He was an accom- 
plished practitioner, a virtuoso of the palette ; but this 
is the extent of his art. His figures do not live, and have 
no character ; their faces .and gestures are always heavy 
and insignificant. What is remarkable, however, is 
that Bassano is the most realistic of the 16th century 
Venetian painters ; it was he who introduced genre into 
Italian art, that is to say, the rendering of scenes from 
actual life. Hitherto, painting had been only religious 
or historical ; it rarely condescended to the observation 
of Nature and of familiar scenes. Bassano studied 
animals carefully, seeking to accentuate the character 
of each beast. Sometimes even, he tried to carry truth 
as far as illusion, and, in some forgotten book, I once 



186 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

read an anecdote telling how Annibale Carracci came 
into his room and put out his hand to take a book 
Jacopo had painted on the table. 

A perfect technician, Bassano was an excellent teacher. 
Veronese did not hesitate to choose him among the ten 
to whom he entrusted the artistic education of his son, 
Carle tto. He had the gift of teaching. He wished to 
make four painters of his four sons. But two never 
rose above the rank of copjdsts, or studio assistants. 
The other two have left a few works not without merit : 
Francesco, pictures of ceremonial, or history, notably in 
the Doge's Palace in Venice ; Leandro, religious com- 
positions and some good portraits, the best of which, 
a sober and vigorous work, is that of the Podesta 
Lorenzo Capello, in the Museum of Bassano. 

But how wearisome it is to look at these dark canvases, 
on which time has laid a sort of opaque varnish. And 
how delightful it is to come back to the light ! Let us 
stroll along the splendid promenades that encircle the 
town. The views from these are magnificent over the 
spurs of the Alps and the valley of the Brenta. The 
various panoramas we saw as a whole from the terrace 
of the presbytery present themselves one by one. These 
views, declares George Sand in her Lettres d'un Voyageur, 
" are among the most welcome changes that can befall 
a traveller weary of the classic masterpieces of Italy." 

I could not find that Cafe des Fosses described by the 
author of Lelia in one of those curious letters she wrote 
in the spring of 1834 " to a poet," as the contents table 
of the book says, in which she speaks to him with superb 
irresponsibility of the "doctor," and of the breakfast 
she had shared with him at this inn at Bassano " on a 
carpet of grass, starred with primroses, a breakfast of 
excellent coffee, mountain butter and bread flavoured 
with aniseed." She invites Musset to a similar breakfast 



GEORGE SAND AT BASSANO 187 

in the same place later on ; " when you will know all ; 
life will hold no further secrets for you. Your hair will 
be turning gray, and mine will be already white ; but 
the valley of Bassano will be no less beautiful." Then 
she went off to the Tyrol ; she proposed to climb inacces- 
sible rocks and pass over unexplored peaks. But, as 
a fact, she only got as far as Oliero, a few miles from 
Bassano ; and by way of Possagno, which gave her a 
pretext for tirades about Canova, she came back to 
Treviso, in a cart drawn by she-asses, seated among kids 
which a peasant was taking to market. She declares 
that she slept fraternally with the innocent beasts 
destined for the butcher's knife on the morrow. *' This 
thought," she adds, " inspired me with an invincible 
horror of their master, and I did not exchange a word 
with him the whole way." 

I have always had a weakness for those Venetian 
letters of George Sand's, written when she was thirty 
years old, the outpourings of a suffering spirit tortured 
by doubt. In the midst of innumerable dissertations 
on the most various subjects, we note the constant 
struggles of a passionate soul against the fetters of 
society and the bondage of opinion, in all their moving 
sincerity. We already find in them that voluptuous 
ideality which underlies all her work and all her life, 
and, above all, her ardent love of nature. She invariably 
prefers the emotion prompted by the beauty of things 
to that induced by art. " The creations of art," she 
says, " speak only to the mind, and the spectacle of 
nature speaks to all our faculties. The beauty of land- 
scape adds a sensuous pleasure to the purely intellectual 
pleasure of admiration. The coolness of water, the 
perfume of flowers, the harmonies of the wind circulate 
in the blood and in the nerves at the moment when 
the splendour of colours and the beauty of forms stir 



188 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

the imagination." No writer has more successfully 
associated psychological states with natural surroundings. 
How many lyrical passages one might select from her 
works for a book to be called Landscapes of Passion^ a 
title I chose for a volume of my own in which I too tried 
my hand at wedding picturesque description to action. 
This evening it is pleasant to evoke the memory of the 
too ardent pilgrim of love here under the lime-trees of 
Bassano, and to think that she once breathed this same 
south wind that blows so warmly on me, full of the 
perfumes of the gardens of the Brenta. 



CHAPTER V 

MASER 

Finding myself close to Maser and Fanzolo, I decided 
to revisit the famous villas built there by Palladio. 
There is no more delightful experience for a traveller 
than to return to the beautiful places that formerly 
enchanted him. He knows that his earlier impressions 
will be revived, but he is also eager to know how far they 
will be enriched. Moreover, I had seen the viUas in 
spring-time embowered in lilacs and flowering shrubs ; 
what new charm would autumn lend them ? In one of 
his recent lectures on Moliere, M. Maurice Donnay 
wittily compared Don Juan to those hasty tourists who 
visit the towns of Italy between two trains, who arrive, 
rush to church or museum, and set off again. " They 
have seen the town one morning, one afternoon of spring 
or autumn ; they will never see it again under other skies, 



THE BARBARO BROTHERS 189 

with other tints ; they never lean on a balustrade whence 
there is a view of the landscape, they never dream by the 
riverside, they never wander in the little crooked streets, 
they never pass through the iron gates of gardens. They 
pass ; it was for them that Baedeker conceived that 
admirable chapter-heading : Venice in four days." 
Do not let us follow their example ; let us enter the iron 
gates of fair gardens and Palladian villas. 

The characteristically ItaHan desire for a pleasure- 
house was always strongly developed among the Venetians, 
Cut off from pastoral scenery, and even to a great extent 
from verdure, they had a longing to get away from the 
canals and the little paved streets where the air never 
changes, to walk on real earth, to see trees and grass. 
The little islands of the lagoon and the banks of the 
Brenta were first covered with houses and gardens. 
Then the rich families went farther afield ; they bought 
land on the Euganean Hills, and even on those moun- 
tains of Bassano, the blue outline of which they saw 
on the horizon each time their gondolas, emerging from 
the Rio San Fehce or the Rio dei Mendicanti, made for 
San Michele or Murano, 

It was natural enough that the Barbaro brothers, 
Daniele, Patriarch of Aquilea, one of the highest digni- 
taries of the church, and Marc-Antonio, Ambassador 
of the Republic to Catherine de' Medici and Sixtus V., 
Procurator of S. Marco and the negotiator of the peace 
after Lepanto, should have desired a rural palace worthy 
of themselves and of their rank. They applied to the 
greatest artists of their day, to Andrea Palladio for the 
architecture, to Alessandro Vittoria for the sculptural 
decoration, and to Veronese for the frescoes. The 
result of this triple collaboration was the lordly dwelling 
which passed at the end of the 18th century from the 
Barbaro family to Lodovico Manin, the last Doge of 



I 



190 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Venice, and after long years of neglect became the Villa 
Giacomelli, the name of the amiable owner who has 
restored it, and was good enough to do the honours of 
it to me. 

The villa, in accordance with the plan generally- 
adopted by Palladio, is set against the slope of a hill, 
whence it rises slightly above the plain ; it consists of 
a central palazzo in the form of a temple with four Ionic 
columns supporting a triangular pediment, and lateral 
buildings somewhat lower, preceded by arcades and 
terminated by two pavilions suggestive of dove-cotes, 
the ground-floors of which the architect designed to 
be respectively the wine-press and the coach-house. 
Behind, a courtyard communicates with the first storey 
of the central building, and is on a level with it. " This 
court," says Palladio, " is on a level with the soil of the 
hill-side, which was lowered and cut on purpose to serve 
as the site of a fountain richly decorated with stuccoes 
and paintings." Alessandro Vittoria, Sansovino's part- 
ner, carried out this decoration, as well as the general 
ornamentation of the palazzo and the gardens. In it 
he displays all his manipulative skill and his ardent 
temperament ; but as always, he shows a lack of restraint 
and aims too obviously at effect. There is excess in the 
profusion of statues and vases that crowd round the 
house ; these sumptuous accessories and this over- 
emphatic splendour are out of harmony with the extreme 
simplicity of the villa itself. 

Veronese undertook the frescoes, and no work could 
have been better suited to his taste and to his powers. 
They were the freest fantasies of an artist who never 
painted but to delight the eye. All that could enliven a 
dwelling, and distract the minds of persons who came to 
the country to rest, this prince of decorators, untram- 
melled by any set programme, scattered broadcast. 



VERONESE'S FRESCOES 191 

Heathen divinities, heroes, ephebi, virtues, vices, loves, 
garlands of fruit and flowers, landscapes, animals, illusory 
portraits and statues, simulated columns, Veronese repre- 
sented as fancy suggested, thinking only of our amuse- 
ment and of his own. Restrained from the representa- 
tion of the nude in his official compositions, he took 
advantage of his freedom here. All the mythological 
and allegorical figures appear as beautiful women with 
blooming carnations ; if they have a fault it is that they 
are a little inexpressive, and all very much alike ; their 
opulent forms are too uniformly superb. Moreover, 
some passages are lax and languid in handling ; the 
subjects, often puerile, have no connection one with the 
other. But what matters it ? Veronese had been 
asked to decorate, not to paint pictures. He had 
merely to beautify surfaces, to hang the walls with 
brilliant frescoes as with tapestries. What task could 
have been more congenial to him who was the most 
delightful of story-tellers, the most skilful stage-manager 
of Venetian festivities ? But we must not look for any 
thought, any expression of moral or intellectual life. 
Veronese was a hand and not a brain. Never was a 
dazzling palette at the service of a less erudite artist ; 
for him, aesthetic rules were limited, as he said in his 
famous reply to the tribunal of the Holy Ofiice, to putting 
into a picture " things that look well in it," He declared 
further that " the painter may claim the licence allowed 
to poets and madmen, and that he should continue to 
paint in accordance with his understanding of things." 
In the city of caprice and fantasy there was no one who 
made less effort to submit to other rules. He concerned 
himself very little with historical or chronological 
exactitude of place, type, or costume, with the laws of 
perspective and architecture. Nor did he shrink from 
being absurd, as long as he was charming. Now 



192 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

he is always charming, and nowhere more so than here, 
in this Villa Barbaro, where we can so well realise what 
the sumptuous summer residences of the rich Venetians 
were in the 16th century. Undoubtedly, there was a 
certain amount of bad taste and ostentation. These 
merchant princes were all the more eager to display their 
wealth because it was newly acquired. To these 
parvenu traders art was an external manifestation, a 
visible sign of their wealth. I do not propose in this 
connection to draw once more the facile, and, too often, 
exaggerated parallel between the sensuality of Venetian 
and the idealism of Florentine art ; but it is obvious that 
in the city of the lagoons, the city of perpetual festivals, 
painters and sculptors were intent, not on elevating the 
soul, but on delighting the senses, and making daily 
life lovelier and pleasanter. Though it has become com- 
monplace, the comparison is apt : Venice, an indolent 
courtesan, has the languors and the love of glitter of 
Eastern women. Living in isolation upon her islands, 
she was not infected by the mystical crisis which agitated 
the whole peninsula. Dealing always with practical 
things, her uninterrupted commerce with Byzantium 
and Islam had made her sceptical and voluptuous. 
Hence, in comparison with the ather Italian schools, 
she is poor in religious pictures ; and too often in those 
she has given us faith is conspicuously absent Sacred 
subjects are mere pretexts for exuberant fancy. In the 
Gospel Veronese found mainly opportunities for painting 
banquets. But what was religion to the city of pleasure, 
of all the pleasures ? Merely a factor which gave 
intensity to the joy of living by evoking the fragiUty 
of life, inflicting a slight agitation, a fleeting emotion 
which barely ruffled the soul, leaving less trace on it 
than the passage of a gondola on the rippling waters. 



CHAPTER VI 

FANZOLO 

The Villa Maser is too magnificent and pretentious 
for my taste. I prefer the Villa Emo, which is further 
South at Fanzolo, in the Trevisan plain. I like it 
because it is less well known and little visited, and above 
all, because it has always belonged to the same family, 
by whom it has been piously and intelligently kept up. 
The fact that it has never changed the name of its owner, 
from the time of Leonardo Emo, a patrician of the 
Republic in the middle of the 16th century, to that of the 
present Count Emo, who welcomes you with the exquisite 
grace of the great noble, gives it a special intimacy 
and amenity. There is no solemnity about this dwelling, 
set in bowers of the freshest greenery, and I cannot 
imagine any country house where the inhabitants could 
live in more artistic surroundings and at the same time 
so close to nature. There is neither trim garden nor 
park around the house, but a belt of woods, fields and 
lawns, the tall grasses of which breathe perfumes. 

PaUadio was the architect here as at Maser. The 
great Vicenzan scattered his works throughout the whole 
region ; if they could all be brought together, they would, 
as Vasari said, make a veritable city. The plan is the 
same as at Maser : a square central building, flanked by 
two long lower wings, faced with colonnaded porticoes, 
which, according to the architect, " would permit the 
owner to move about on his busiaess under shelter, 
undeterred by the heat of the sun or the rain, while at 
the same time they would also add to the appearance of 
the building." The arrangement of the palazzo is 

193 



194 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

extremely simple ; in the middle there is a loggia on the 
fa9ade, and behind it, a vestibule leading to the reception- 
room ; on each side, left and right, are rooms corres- 
ponding to the four angles. The decoration consists of 
simulated architecture and paintings which, here again, 
are a curious medley of reHgious subjects and pagan 
scenes ; hence the rooms are called those of Venus, the 
Holy Family, Hercules and the Ecce Homo, in reference to 
the principal fresco in each. The central part is the most 
perfect : the fine loggia^ where a dignified Geres receives 
you, as is fitting in this rural retreat ; the vestibule, 
the ceiling of which is adorned with the foliage of a 
magnificent vine ; and above all, the great saloon, a 
room of most harmonious proportions, decorated through- 
out with simulated columns, niches and statues. Here 
are the two best works : the Death of Virginia and the 
Continence of Scipio Africanus. They are undoubtedly 
by Zelotti ; but may not Veronese have collaborated 
with him to a certain extent ? Did he merely 
give general directions or did he himself paint 
some fragments ? The question will be debated indefi- 
nitely, no doubt. I myself think that Veronese had 
something to do with these frescoes. The argument 
that they are not equal to those in the Villa Barbaro 
proves nothing, for they were painted fifteen years 
earlier, at a time when the youthful Paolo Caliari, 
under the direct influence of the masters of Verona, was 
still seeking his way, before Titian and the great Vene- 
tians had been revealed to him. It seems to me probable 
that he composed and designed the most important 
subjects, leaving Zelotti to finish the work alone ; 
Zelotti was, indeed, a colourist of repute, whom Vasari 
pronounced superior to Veronese in the art of fresco. 
The majority of these paintings are careless and look as 
if they had been hurriedly executed ; the draperies 



VIEWS FROM VILLA EMO 195 

are heavy and the faces inexpressive. The little reli- 
gious scenes alone are more finished ; I remember an 
Ecce Homo and a Jesus as the Oardener very admirably 
composed. On the other hand, the mythological subjects 
are nearly all treated carelessly and as simple sketches. 
But why insist on details when the general effect is 
charming in its exquisite blond tones ? How futile these 
questions of attribution and criticism seem in these 
rooms, the supreme decoration of which is the exquisite 
landscape which enters them by wide bays ! The view 
extends over vast meadows gemmed with flowers, 
interrupted only by groves of trees and the long lines 
of poplars marking out splendid avenues, which lose 
themselves in the plain. The rooms are full of the 
pleasant smell of grass and ripe fruit. In the distance, 
in the dusty golden air, lie the blue mountains, the hills 
of Asolo, and the Alps of Cadore. Nowhere is this 
constant intermingling of art and nature more delightful. 
Truly, the Venetians were the most voluptuous of men. 
And little given as I am to envy, I envied the happy 
owner of this dwelling, who, without quitting his treasure- 
house, may live among all the graces of Virgilian poetry 
throughout the year, witnessing the life of the fields, 
seed-time, harvest and vintage. I went away regret- 
fully at dusk from this villa where the nights must be 
so beautiful, and where, closing one's eyes on the pearly 
carnations of Venus, one may fall asleep amidst the 
scents of new-mown hay. 



2 



196 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 



CHAPTER VII 

FUSINA 

Shores of the Brenta, Euganean Hills, how long I 
have been dreaming of you and hoping to know you ! 
So great is the magic of words to me that I loved to 
evoke you, merely for the pleasure of repeating the 
liquid syllables of your beautiful names ! Often, 
returning from the islands of the lagoon and re-entering 
Venice as it lay ablaze in the September sunset, I 
regretted that I could not make my way further along the 
river, to those blue mountains standing out in the light, 
softly rounded as young breasts. 

Literary memories sharpened my desire rather than 
Baedeker, who devotes but a few lines to this region. I 
thought of Petrarch ending his days in the little house at 
Arqua, of Byron riding along the banks of the Brenta or 
on the hillsides of Este, of the heroes of II Fuoco pursuing 
each other in the labyrinth of Stra. I remembered 
Barres' advice : " Do not miss an opportunity of going 
up the Brenta on one of those slow vessels which are the 
only ones that still ply between Fusina and Padua. 
In warm brilHant autumn weather, how dehghtful it 
is on this old deserted waterway, where no letter from 
France can reach us 1 " And, moreover, whenever I 
went through Padua, I was haunted by these verses 
of Musset's, which are far from being among his best : — 

Padoue est un fort bel endroit 
Oh de tres grands docteurs en droit 
Ont fait merveille. 



SHORES OF THE BRENTA 197 

Mais j'aime niieux la polenta 
Qu'on mange aux bords de la Brenta 
Sous une treille.^ 

This year I have at last been able to realise my dream. 
I did not eat polenta under a vine-arbour, but I followed 
the course of the Brenta at my ease, sometimes in boats, 
sometimes sauntering along the banks on foot. And, 
at first, I was disappointed. 

It is at Fusina that those shores begin, the fame of which 
was so extraordinary that their scenery has been 
compared to the greatest wonders of the world. " I 
do not believe," says Lalande, " that the beauties of 
Tempe, so lauded by the ancient poets, or the suburbs 
of Daphne (to the South of Antioch), of which we have 
heard so much, can have been more beautiful than the 
Bay of Naples and the shores of the Brenta." Such 
praises seem strangely exaggerated to-day, for what we 
see is but a pale reflection of the ancient splendour of 
these shores at the time when they were visited in a 
burchiello. This, says Lalande, " was a large bark, 
the cabin generally adorned with paintings, carpets, 
mirrors and glass doors ; it was towed by one or two 
four-oared boats from Venice to Fusina, along the lagoons 
where the course is marked out by posts, that the vessels 
may not lose their way or ground upon sand-banks. 
It takes about an hour to go from Venice to the mainland, 
that is to say, a distance of five miles ; then two horses 
draw the boat along the canal of the Brenta. After 
entering this canal, one passes a double file of villages 
and houses following each other uninterruptedly, 
splendid palaces, gay little cots, endless gardens, luxu- 
riant verdure ; I have never seen shores so radiant or 

^ Padua is a fine city, where very learned doctors of the law 
have worked marvels ; but more to my taste is the polenta one eats 
on the banks of the Brenta under a vine- arbour. 



198 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

so populous." Some twenty years later, President de 
Brosses also extoUed his hurchiello, which was called the 
Bucentaur, " As you may suppose," he says, "it is 
but a very little child of the great Bucentaur ; but then 
it is the prettiest child in the world, a very handsome 
likeness of our water diligences, and much cleaner. It 
contains a little ante-room for servants giving access to 
a room hung with Venetian brocatelle, with a table, and 
two seats covered with Morocco leather, eight practicable 
windows and two glazed doors. We found our lodging 
so comfortable and so pleasant that, contrary to our 
habit, we were in no haste to reach our destination, the 
less so as we were weU provided with food, Canary wine, 
etc., and as the banks are bordered by many beautiful 
houses belonging to the Venetian nobles." Naturally, 
under such conditions, the way cannot have seemed very 
long. How delightful it must have been to travel thus 
slowly and comfortably in one of the loveliest countries 
in the world and with the most charming boon compan- 
ions imaginable. As soon as night f eU, the vessel was 
moored ; the company dined at a villa, or, faiUng this, 
improvised a feast on board. They danced and sang 
and gambled till morning. Intrigues began and were 
broken off. The smallest incident had a delicious 
picturesqueness. 

At no period was the delight of life greater or more 
passionately cultivated than during the Venetian 18th 
century. We must read the memoirs of the day to get 
an idea of the incessant festivities that followed one 
upon the other on these shores where over a hundred and 
fifty villas had been built. Life in these was as luxurious 
and even freer than in Venice. The Venetians did not 
go to the country to rest and enjoy rural pleasures, 
but to amuse themselves, to pass from diversion to 
diversion, from folly to folly, and also to dazzle their 



DECAY OF FUSINA 199 

neighbours. Their mentality was not unlike that of 
the Parisians of to-day, who can devise no better form of 
amusement than to reassemble at Cabourg or Trouville, 
on the same boards and in the same casinos. Snobbery 
is of all time ; only the word is modern. It was essential 
to have a villa on the banks of the Brenta, just as it Is 
now to have one on the unattractive, characterless 
coast of Calvados. 

Since the beginning of last century the calm waters 
of the river no longer reflect the lights of boats, or echo 
the songs of Pergolesi and Cimarosa. Mournful Fusina 
no longer sees the gaily beflagged hurchielli ; only 
barges laden with fruit make their way every morning 
to the Venetian markets. Candide would seek the 
Signor Pococurante in vain on these deserted shores, and 
Corinne would not retire to a villa here on the departure 
of Oswald. It was Napoleon who dealt the first blow at 
the prosperity of the Republic ; the Austrian occupation 
completed its ruin. Even in 1833, when Chateaubriand 
revisited them, the shores were no longer so inviting, and 
many villas had disappeared ; however, in spite of this 
partial disappointment, he was delighted with the 
" mulberry, orange and fig-trees and the sweetness of 
the air " ; it is true that he had come back from " the 
pine forests of Germany and from the Czech mountains, 
where the sun has an evil face." 

The decadence has continued. When, after passing 
the pink walls of San Giorgio in Alga, where a little 
marble Madonna watches over the lagoon, I landed on 
the shores of flat, marshy Fusina, a haunt of fever and 
mosquitoes, I had a sense of mortal depression. It was 
formerly an important village. Deep wells had been 
sunk here whence came the drinking-water which was 
carried every day to Venice in specially constructed 
barges. A curious mechanism, the Carro, by the help 



200 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of ropes and pulley, used to hoist boats over the bar 
which closed the mouth of the Brenta, before its course 
had been partially deflected towards the South. Now 
there is nothing but the custom-house, the little electric- 
tramway station, and a few miserable houses half 
imbedded in the mud. The melancholy of it all might 
move one to tears. Where is the old Fusina whose 
charm was praised by travellers, the Fusina set between 
ponds and the lagoon, in the midst of flowers and verdure, 
of water lilies and irises ? Around me I see nothing but 
the mournful fields invaded by an immense vegetable 
decomposition. On this autumn morning the low plain, 
almost liquid and steaming with the decay of plants, 
looks like an ill-drained marsh. Little pools twinkle in 
the sun. But the scene changes quickly enough, A 
few farms give a touch of animation to the roadside. 
Boats sHp along the canal, drawn by horses, or propelled 
by rowers ; others are moored against the banks, laden 
with brilUant fruits and ripe grapes. In the meadows 
flexible vines throw their garlands from one pioppo to 
another, swaying in the wind like golden and purple 
hammocks. Bright yellow houses are reflected in the 
turbid waters of the river which are barely stirred by the 
passing of the boats. 

Once these waters ran freely, when the Brenta fol- 
lowed its natural course and fell into the sea at Fusina. 
But from the day when Venice subdued Padua, the 
constant care of the Republic was to deflect the course of 
the river, which silted up sand in the lagoon, and by means 
of canals to carry off the water and the earth it brought 
down with it to a considerable distance, towards Brondolo 
and Chioggia. The old bed, now canalised and controlled 
by locks, is at present a kind of long, narrow pool in 
which innumerable ducks dabble ; in certain corners 
it seems asleep under the vegetation that covers it. 



THE VILLA FOSCARI 201 

Fortunately, the engineers did not attempt to rectify 
its incessant windings. At every bend the view changes. 
Often a double colonnade of tall golden poplars lines the 
banks. A premature autumn has followed a rainy 
summer, and the mulberry-trees are already yellow in 
the yellowing plain. Near the barns flames the vivid 
foliage of cherry-trees. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MALCONTENTA 

At a bend of the Brenta, the lofty mass of the ViUa 
Foscari rises behind the roofs of Malcontenta, and we 
are surprised not to have seen it before, so majestically 
does it stand out above the motionless plain. The 
walls built by Palladio have preserved their air of digni- 
fied serenity so perfectly that the traveller who sees 
them as he passes on the opposite bank of the canal little 
suspects the ruins they shelter. The dovnifall of the 
Republic was followed by pillage of the most shameless 
kind. When its palaces were not entirely demolished, 
as they often were, all the artistic objects they contained 
were offered for sale ; furniture, frescoes, woodwork 
and stuffs ; then contractors for the breaking up of 
buildings bought wholesale at very low prices everything 
that still possessed any kind of value ; stones, lead, 
ironwork, and decorative motives. It was a veritable 
razzia. Rarely has vandalism been carried so far. 

The ground floor of the Villa Foscari is at present 
occupied by a cartwright's workshop. When I asked 



202 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

one of the workmen if I could see the villa, he seemed 
surprised at my request, and declared there was nothing 
to see ; then, as I insisted, he showed me a little door 
and a tumbledown spiral staircase, which now gives 
access to the first floor. He did not condescend to 
accompany me. What, indeed, could a visitor carry 
off, seeing that the rooms are empty ? 

Here, even more than in the Rotunda at Vicenza, 
or in any of the ruined palaces of Venice, one is struck 
with consternation by the impression of sudden, inex- 
plicable decay. Standing in the large, cheerful, sunny 
rooms, with fine views of the surrounding country, it 
is difficult to understand their abandonment. Here and 
there on the walls it is possible to distinguish vestiges 
of the frescoes with which they were decorated by 
Battista Zelotti, perhaps under the direction of Veronese, 
as at Maser and Fanzolo. I come upon a simulated 
statue of a woman closely akin to one in the ViUa 
Giacomelli. I look in vain for that Fall of the Titans 
which President de Brosses so greatly admired. What 
has become of these paintings ? Have they been 
removed piecemeal, or simply destroyed by time ? 
They have probably been destroyed, since a good many 
fragments stiU exist, and there is no trace in museums 
or private collections of the missing portions. 

The entrance saloon must have been of noble propor- 
tions ; folio wing, the plan dear to Palladio, it occupied 
the entire depth of the building, extending from the main 
front on the Brenta to the fagade overlooking the 
gardens. The present owner is planning its restoration, 
and certain works have in fact been begun ; but the 
ravages that will have to be repaired are very great. 
Among the other rooms two cabinets only have pre- 
served their original decoration in fairly good condition ; 
and it is charming. Nowhere did the artists who 



HENRI III ON THE BRENTA 203 

Specialised in stucco and fresco acquire greater skill 
than in Venice. They had everything essential to such 
work : richness of invention, grace, variety, elegance, 
freshness of inspiration, and, above all, exquisite taste. 
Their fecundity was almost miraculous. Festoons and 
garlands, vine-branches, foliage and flowers, butter- 
flies and ribbons run round doors and windows, undulate 
along the walls, and enframe alcoves. Putti and Cupids, 
charmingly modelled, enliven these motives with their 
thousand attitudes, unexpected, but always natural. 
Memories of the East and even of the Far East with 
which Venice was in constant intercourse add pictur- 
esque touches. Sometimes the walls were adorned with 
real landscapes. In one of the little cabinets, especially, 
there is a perfectly preserved ceiling ; a Fame with out- 
spread wings flies surrounded by chubby children, 
animals, grotesques and emblems. The general effect 
is delightful. Anxious to take back a souvenir of my 
visit, I laid my Kodak upside down on the floor in more 
or less haphazard fashion, and as sometimes happens in 
photography, this picture, perhaps unique, and on which 
I had not reckoned, has proved the best I got during my 
journey. 

The principal entrance was under the colonnade, 
which gives so much dignity to the fa9ade. An inscrip- 
tion records the visit of Henri III of France, who, on 
receiving the news of the death of his brother, Charles 
IX, had quitted Cracow surreptitiously, eager to exchange 
a foreign crown for that of his fathers. Venice gave him 
a magnificent reception ; the chronicles that have come 
down to us bear witness to the splendour of the festivi- 
ties which took place at the end of July, 1574, and are so 
detailed that we can foUow the course of these from day 
to day, and almost from hour to hour ; this, in fact, has 
been done by M. Pierre de Nolhac and M. Angelo Solerti 



204 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

in a very interesting Italian publication. An old 
friendship and mutual esteem united the Republic and 
the Most Christian King. At Venice, as at Vienna, the 
French Ambassador followed immediately after the 
Pope's Envoy, and the term Amhasciatore, without any 
affix, was used to designate the representative of France, 
as if there were no other. We can imagine the excite- 
ment caused by the arrival of Henri III ; the incident 
of his flight from Cracow — -the somewhat ridiculous 
circumstances of which were unknown — had invested 
him with a kind of halo of courage and audacity. All 
classes of society vied with each other in enthusiasm ; 
the Ambassador Du Perrier was able to write to the 
King as follows : "In truth, Sire, I must tell you that 
there is not a man or woman in the town, of whatever 
condition they be, who is not anxious to honour you. 
Octogenarians and centenarians dread to die before 
seeing you." The Senate passed a series of exceptional 
measures ; it decided to erect a triumphal arch at the 
Lido, where the King was to land, and commissioned 
Palladio to construct it, which he did in less than a 
month. Fortunately, two reproductions of the great 
architect's work have come down to us ; one in the picture 
by Vicentino, which still adorns the Hall of the Four 
Doors in the Doge's Palace, the other in an engraving 
by Zenone at Padua University ; the latter is of the 
highest value, for it enables us to distinguish the details 
and inscriptions on the arch. We even find noted on it 
the exact spot occupied by the magistrates and digni- 
taries of the RepubUc, on the arrival of the French 
Monarch. 

Henri left Venice after ten days of festivity. The 
royal procession entered the Brenta, and stopped at the 
Foscari Palace, where dinner had been prepared. The 
last of the Valois admired, we are told, the loggia^ the 



BANKS OF THE BRENTA 205 

double staircase leading up to it, and the shady groves 
surrounding the villa. Alas ! those groves have dis- 
appeared. The park of the ancient domain has been 
transformed into fields and farms. There are neither 
gardens nor hornbeam avenues. The palace itself is 
now a mere annexe of the adjoining bam. The exterior 
of the building alone has remained almost intact. The 
high walls, to which the fine colonnade of the faQade 
gives the aspect of an antique temple, seem to feel shame 
that they are still so noble only to shelter work shops 
and lofts ; the air of death and melancholy would be 
less pronounced, I think, if their lines were half effaced 
by moss and vegetation, and not so clearly marked 
against the sky ; if their silhouette had become vague 
and indefinite, like the inverted image we see in the 
turbid waters of the river. 



CHAPTER IX 

MIBA 

After Malcontenta, and almost as far as Mira, the 
majority of the villas are in ruins, and merely serve, like 
the Foscari palazzo, as agricultural depots. It cannot 
cost much nowadays to have a palace on the Brenta ! 
The gardens still exist round many of the buildings, with 
their alleys of tall box-bushes and aged trees of rare 
species which bear witness to past splendour. On what 
were once the lawns — 'now ragged grass-plots, or vege- 
table patches — -stand mutilated statues and columns 
surmounted by crumbling vases. Baskets of carved 



206 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

fruit, glinting in the sunshine, are perched on tottering 
pedestals. Mosses, Virginian creeper and ivy have 
annexed the territory and bind the marbles in their 
jflexible tendrils at will. Old age and solitude, so 
disastrous in their action on dwellings, give an appealing 
grace to these gardens ; the beginning of their death- 
agony is more evident to us than the patina of time, or 
the majesty of spreading boughs. We make their 
acquaintance at a moment when decay lends them a 
supreme attraction. Their dilapidation makes them 
doubly dear to us. We gaze at them tenderly as, by 
the bedside of one who is about to leave us, we look back 
with a bitter satisfaction on the joys we have shared with 
him, all the fairer because they are dead for ever. 

These banks are peopled with statues. D'Annunzio's 
ardent imagination has hardly exaggerated their number 
in that page of II Fuoco, where he sees them everywhere, 
in the midst of orchards, vines and silvery cabbages, 
vegetables and pastures, on dung-hills and on heaps of 
wine-lees, under stacks of straw and on the thresholds 
of cottages, " still white, or gray, or yellow with lichens, 
or green with mosses, or stained and speckled, in every 
attitude, with every gesture. Goddesses, Heroes, Nymphs, 
Seasons, Hours, with their bows, their arrows, their 
garlands, their torches, with all the emblems of power, 
wealth and pleasure, exiles from fountain, grotto, 
labyrinth, arbour and portico, comrades of evergreen, 
box and myrtle, protectors of fugitive loves, witnesses 
of eternal vows, figures of a dream far older than the 
hands that fashioned them and the eyes that rested on 
them in the devastated gardens." 

What changes a century has wrought ! What irony 
there is in the wide avenues where no one walks, in the 
festal halls where no one dances. How hospitable is the 
sweep of those grand steps and entries ! Pax intrarUibua 



VILLA CONTARINI 207 

(Peace to all who enter) we still read on a f ayade as we 
approach Mira, where there are a few villas in better 
preservation. Two at least among them deserve a 
visit, were it only for the memories they evoke. 

The first is the villa built for Federigo Contarini, 
Procurator of San Marco. It is often called the Palace 
of the Lions, because two stone hons guard the entrance, 
on either side of the avenue of plane-trees. Henri III 
made a second and last halt on the banks of the Brenta 
at this point. The inscription which records the event 
sums up the unanimous welcome he received in a happy 
formula: tota fere Italia comitante. Frescoes by Tiepolo, 
now in the Andre Collection, once adorned the reception- 
room ; the commission for them had been given to the 
painter by the Pisani, the heirs of the Contarini. The 
most important commemorates the visit of the King of 
France ; but the painter was not deeply concerned with 
accuracy in his record. It is evident that he was content 
to copy Vicentino's portrait of the Valois ; and it seems 
curious that for the background he should not even have 
troubled to reproduce the landscape and the palace 
from nature. But from the decorative point of view 
the work is admirable, and the scene imagined by the 
painter is full of dash and gallantry. Henri III ascends 
the steps to a terrace, followed by a long train of French 
and PoUsh gentlemen, pages, guards and dwarfs ; the 
aged Contarini, robed in a toga and surrounded by sena- 
tors and patricians, bows low before the youthful 
sovereign. 

The other villa at Mira which I wanted to see was the 
Ferrigli palace, formerly the property of the Foscarini. 
It is not very remarkable in appearance, and no longer 
can one even evoke the amorous figure of that 
Antonio Foscarini, who is said to have suffered capital 
punishment rather than compromise the honour of a 



208 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

woman. The law of the Republic punished by death any 
citizen who should enter the house of a foreign diplo- 
matist by night, and the story goes that one evening the 
son of the Doge, surprised in the chamber of a Venetian 
lady, had been obliged to leap from the window on to a 
neighbouring balcony, which happened to be that of the 
Spanish Embassy. It has since been proved that love 
had nothing to do with the affair. The condemnation of 
Antonio Foscarini for secret negotiations is none the less 
painful, for, after the execution of the sentence, his 
innocence was recognised, and solemnly proclaimed by 
the Council of Ten. 

Though we must abandon this legend, the palace has 
authentic memories of Byron, who rented it in 1817 for 
his mistress, Marianna, when she was suffering from 
fever. It was at Mira, too, that he made the acquain- 
tance of a daughter of the people, Margarita Cogni, 
whom he christened La Fornarina. And it was to this 
same villa that he returned a few weeks later with the 
Countess Guiccioli, for whom the doctors had recom- 
mended country air. This is the room where he wrote 
the admirable Fourth Canto of Ghilde Harold's Pilgrim- 
age. Perhaps these months at Mira were among the 
happiest and calmest of his life ! Poor Byron ! His 
existence was an alternation of noble desires and vile 
reaUties, of cynicism and tenderness, of enthusiasm and 
disgust. Like that vessel of Murano enclosed in a glass 
bubble which seems to lack the strength to break the 
frail barrier that holds it motionless, the least obstacle 
seemed to paralyse his audacious energies. It was 
after his most ardent efforts to free himself from the mud 
into which he was sinking that he fell most lamentably, 
and into excesses unworthy of his genius. I know not 
why, but I thought of him the other day, when reading 
over the Lettre a Fontanes in which Chateaubriand speaks 



MEMORIES OF BYRON 209 

of the Tiber, which owes its yellow colour to the rains 
that fall in the mountains whence it descends : " Often," 
he says, " watching its discoloured waters, in the serenest 
weather, I thought of a life begun in the midst of 
tempest ; it is in vain that the rest of its course is under 
a clear sky ; the river will always be stained with the 
waters of the storm that troubled it at its source." 
Nearly the whole of Bjrron's life was spent in agitation, 
and I can understand the deep impression made on 
him by an inscription he read on a tomb in the Certosa 
of Ferrara : Implora pace:- " Here we have everything," 
he writes in a letter, " impotence, contrite hope, humility. 
... I hope that he who survives me, whoever he may be, 
and sees me carried to the foreign corner in the cemetery 
of the Lido, will have those words and no others 
graven on my stone." Byron's wish was not 
granted. He does not slumber on the shores of the 
lagoon, by the sea that had so often bathed his beautiful 
body. And neither his memory nor his works inspire 
that peace he implored. His verses still breathe 
heroism. Merely from evoking his memory one day in 
Venice, Mickiewicz felt a revival of those noble ardours 
which had been for a while dulled by the calm of Weimar, 
the counsellor of egotism. No personality is more 
exciting than that of Bjrron. But can we evoke him to- 
day on the crowded shores of the Lido, for ever German- 
ised and disfigured ? It is on the lonely banks of the 
Brenta, on autumn evenings ablaze with blood and gold, 
and, above all, in that villa where the phantoms of some 
of his loves still linger, that we may encounter the sorrow- 
ful shade of the poet of Don Juan. 



210 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER X 

steI 

From Mira to Str^, the palaces follow one after the 
other almost uninterruptedly along the Brenta, which 
flows at the foot of their walls, or under the trees of their 
parks. The persistent scent of box, at once harsh and 
honeyed, floats over the tranquil water. Above the 
gateways, statues keep their indifferent watch. And if 
decay is less apparent here, there is also a falling off in 
picturesqueness. The faults of taste are numerous, both 
in the restorations and in the modern buildings that have 
been stuck on to the old ones. A few of the villas still 
belong to the descendants of old f amflies of the Republic ; 
but a great many have passed into the hands of the rich 
traders of Venice, or Padua. Both, however, have 
renounced the luxury of former days ; the nobles who 
turn out of their palaces on the Grand Canal to let them 
to foreigners, and the merchants who are piling up 
fortunes alike live quietly and try to turn the adjacent 
lands to account. 

Very soon after passing Dolo and the red walls of the 
Villa Barbariga, we see the dense thickets and the lofty 
silhouette of the palace of Stra, the most modern, the 
most important and the best preserved of all those which 
were raised upon these shores. It was built for the 
Pisani, who wanted a splendid dwelling which should 
attest their wealth. As they could not procure sufficient 
space in Venice, they had it built on the site of their 
country-house at Str^. They applied to Frigimelica, 
who had restored their palace on the Grand Canal, 
but his plans were modified by Francesco Maria Preti, 



PALACE OF THE PISANI 211 

who directed the works. The building was completed 
in 1735, just when Alvise Pisani was elected Doge. 

The size and splendour of Str^ made it a fit abode for 
sovereigns only. In 1807, Napoleon I bought it for 
nearly a million francs for Eugene de Beauhamais, 
Viceroy of Italy. At the faU of the French Empire 
it became the property of the Austrian Hapsburgs, 
who often inhabited it, and kept it up carefully. The 
Empress Maria-Anna was especially fond of it, as was 
also the unfortunate Maximilian, the young blue-ej^ed 
Archduke, to whom Napoleon III wanted to give 
Venetia at Villafranca, and whose life ended so tragi- 
cally in Mexico. In the long inscription on a marble 
tablet at the entrance of the vestibule, which gives the 
history of the villa in detail, I notice how skilfully the 
memories of from 1815 to 1865 have been veiled in a 
vague formula ; ahitata da sovrani e da principi.^ 

And yet this half- century was the most brilliant 
period of Str^. After the reunion of Venetia to the 
Kingdom of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II spent very 
little time there. To-day the palace, stripped of some 
of its works of art, and of its furniture, which was 
taken to Monza, is merely an expensive national monu- 
ment, of which the Italian Government has often 
tried to dispose. But, fortunately, a clause in the sale 
contract forbids the cutting up of the estate. In spite 
of the absurd price at which it has been offered (less 
than 200,000 francs, I have been told) Str^ still belongs 
to the State. Strange that this princely dwelling has 
not tempted some American millionaire with a taste for 
historic memories ! 

A vast ill-kept meadow lies in front of the palace and 
shows up the imposing fa9ade. We feel that Alvise 
Pisani had brought back a taste for sumptuous buildings 
^ Inhabited by sovereigns and princes. 

P 2 



212 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

from his embassy to the Court of France. The spectator 
cannot but recall Versailles in the presence of such an 
accumulation of colonnades, pilasters and caryatides. 
The whole is somewhat composite as architecture, but 
powerful in efEect ; the amplitude of the lines masks 
the heterogeneous style very skilfully. The solemnity of 
the entrance harmonises with the majesty of the 
fagade. The immense vestibule extends to the further 
end of the palace, intersected by the massive columns 
which support the ball-room. There is consequently 
no room of any interest on the ground floor. In 
short, this huge building has only a single storey. 
But this is perfectly arranged. The place is remarkably 
simple. In the centre is the reception-room, and the 
two inner courts which light it from the sides ; all 
around is a wide corridor into which open the rooms that 
are lighted from without on the four sides of the palace ; 
I do not know the exact number of these, but there are 
over a hundred. Seeing them is rather a wearisome 
business, as the visitor is shepherded by a custodian — • 
amusing enough for the first quarter of an hour — -who 
is still awe-struck; at the thought of all the crowned heads 
who have sojourned here. He points out, with great 
respect, the biUiard-table on which the sovereigns of 
three countries played. The bed in which Napoleon 
slept is the object of his special veneration. On the 
other hand, the worthy fellow is less deferential in the 
rooms that sheltered the secret amours of II Re Galan- 
tuomo, or of Maria Luisa Teresa of Parma, the old 
Queen of Spain, and mistress of Godoy. There are few 
works of art, and I saw only one reaUy interesting room, 
that in which the Council of Ten used to meet in the 
time of Alvise Pisani. The walls are decorated with 
marble medallions representing the members of the 
Doge's family and his suite. The place of honour was 



CEILING BY TIEPOLO 213 

given to a very fine bust of a woman, Pisani's nurse ; 
this old peasant's head is admirably realistic with its 
strongly marked features and the high cheek bones under 
the wrinkled skin. 

The central saloon is one of the most magnificent I 
have ever seen. The ceiling is irradiated by a Tiepolo, 
the date of which is fixed by a letter of December, 1761. 
In it the artist speaks of finishing " the great hall of the 
Pisani palace " before setting out for Spain. The work 
was therefore one of the last executed by Tiepolo in 
Italy, at the very zenith of his powers. Commissioned 
to glorify the most illustrious of the Pisani, the artist 
has painted them surrounded by the attributes of Peace 
and Abundance. Venice, in the guise of a queen wearing 
a battlemented crown and holding a sceptre surmounted 
by a cross, advances towards them. Above hovers the 
Virgin in a circle formed by Faith, Hope, Wisdom and 
Charity. In the centre of the ceiling a Fame, audaciously 
foreshortened, flies through the free spaces of the air. 
I was unable to make out the exact significance of the 
other figures. But the general effect is prodigious, and, 
in the words of Signor Molmenti, " it is one of the happiest 
visions of art that ever enchanted the senses." 

Nature alone can charm the eye after such radiance as 
this, and the park is worthy of the villa. Here, again, 
there are echoes of Versailles. A long central avenue 
with lawns and ornamental waters leads to the former 
stables, an imposing building, almost a palace, now 
allocated to an institute of hydrology. On every side 
alleys branch off in various directions, leading either to a 
gate, an archway, or a belvedere ; and each of these is 
remarkable for its architectural decoration. Under 
the trees, too, there are innumerable statues, porticoes, 
vases and pavilions. Here, as in the fields around the 
Brenta, all the gods and goddesses of mythology ar© 



214 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

represented. A little more simplicity would be a relief ; 
there is a certain bad taste in all this decorative luxuri- 
ance. In thickets of box and hornbeam a labyrinth 
circles in bewildering curves round a little tower sur- 
mounted by the figure of a warrior. I pushed open the 
rusty gate between two pilasters supporting Cupids astride 
dolphins which gives access to it. And it amused me 
to wander in the treacherous alleys which d'Annunzio 
made the scene of Stelio d' Effrena's cruel pranks. 



CHAPTER XI 

MONSELICE 

After leaving the villages of Str^ and Ponte di 
Brenta, where we cross the muddy river, we enter the 
rich Paduan plain. The road is shaded by a double 
row of plane-trees, the russet leaves of which burn in the 
sunshine. Scented vapours float in the light air. 
Virginian creeper, heavy clusters of wisteria, and red 
roses hang over the walls. Never have I felt the poignant 
sweetness of autumn more keenly, and Le Cardonnel's 
verses rise to my lips :— 

Dans sa limpidity la lumi^re d'octobre 
S'^pandant de I'azur, emplit I'air allege; 
EUe baigne d'un or harmonieux et sobre 
Las champs oh Ton a vendang^.^ 

The environs of Padua are delightful. " If we did 
not know," said the Emperor Constantine Palaeologus, 

^ The limpid light of October, spreading from the azure, fills 
the clear air, and floods the fields where the grapes have been 
gathered with sober, harmonious gold. 



ENVIRONS OF PADUA 215 

" that the earthly Paradise was in Asia, I should believe 
that it must have been in the territory of Padua." I 
am struck more especially by the change in the aspect 
of everything only a few leagues from Venice. Climate, 
landscape, sky and inhabitants are all quite different. 
The light, above all, is of another quality. It is not full 
of colour and vapour as on the lagoon, but vivid and 
piercing. Forms stand out in strong relief. The lines 
of the Euganean Hills, so soft and blurred as seen from 
Venice, are so precise and definite here that they almost 
hurt the eyes. And merely walking along this road 
enables me to realise why the vision of the Paduan 
painters differs so essentially from that of the Venetians 
with whom they were long classed. The School of 
Padua is far more akin to that of Florence, whence, 
indeed, came the two great masters of the 14th 
and 15th centuries whose influence was to be so 
decisive here. Giotto and Donatello did not feel them- 
selves strangers on the banks of the Bacchiglione, and 
they were at once understood and imitated. Nothing 
could be more alien to the art of Titian than the somewhat 
hard dry manner of Squarcione and Mantegna. 

On leaving Padua, the Ferrara road runs parallel with 
the Battaglia canal. To the left is a vast plain, formerly 
marshy, but now drained and watered by an elaborate 
system of canals, a veritable garden of riotous fertility, 
where the roads disappear under verdure. To the right 
are the Euganean Hills, a little volcanic chain rising 
abruptly from the plain, and quite independent both of 
the spurs of the Veronese Alps and of the Apennines. 
Their extinct craters are fantastically shaped, but 
always harmonious, as Chateaubriand, who dehghted in 
this region, has noted. "This road to Monselice," he 
says, " is charming : hills most graceful in outline, 
orchards of fig and mulberry, and willows festooned with 



216 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

vines . . . The Euganean Mountains shone golden in the 
setting sun v/ith an agreeable variety of forms and great 
purity of lines ; one of these hills is like the chief pyramid 
of Sakkarah, when it stands out against the Libyan 
horizon at sunset." He is fired by the thought that he 
is passing through one of the places of the earth richest 
in poets and men of letters. He quotes Livy, Virgil, 
Catullus, Ariosto, Tasso, Petrarch and others pell-mell. 
As a fact, I can think of but two literary incidents which 
are truly local : the birth of Livy at Abano, and the 
death of Petrarch in the little village of Arqua. 

The whole country is rich in thermal springs. The 
Euganean craters no longer pour out lava ; but the 
Waters that flow so abundantly from the trachyte bear 
witness to the continued activity of subterranean 
fires. The meadows are intersected by streams of hot 
water that give off heavy vapours. One of the amuse- 
ments of those who come to take the waters is to boilr 
eggs in the springs where the temperature of the water 
is very high. The springs of Abano, moreover, boast of 
an almost fabulous past, for Hercules is said to have 
rested here from his labours, whence the origin of Abano, 
a place of rest, aVovos. Here too Cornelius had the 
prophetic vision which enabled him to predict the victory 
of Pharsalia. What is at least certain is that in the 4th 
century Claudian wrote an enthusiastic and pompous 
eulogy of the baths. 

After Battaglia, embowered in verdure, the road again 
skirts the hills dominated by Monte Verda, which is over 
1,800 feet high ; and very soon we are at Monselice. 
The town lies between the canal, the Rocca rising steeply 
above, and the old battlemented walls still in fair 
preservation here and there. It looks so constricted 
the spectator feels he might almost grasp it in his hand 
as S. Barbara^grasps her tower. It is a little old town 



LA ROCCA 217 

which was of some importance before the Roman domina- 
tion ; relics of the Stone Age have been discovered here, 
and many flint objects have been found at La Rocca, 
whence the name : Mons Silicis. On this precipitous 
rock there are still vestiges of the fortifications raised 
by Ezzelino, the famous tyrant of Padua. The view of 
the hill is most picturesque, especially when one comes on 
it by the Padua road. A line of cypresses towers sky- 
ward, barring the horizon, and a single parasol pine 
among them has an extraordinary value against the deep 
blue of the atmosphere. At Monselice there are several 
churches, a mediaeval castle with red ivy-clad walls, and 
above all, on the flank of the Rocca, a famous shrine 
consisting of seven chapels. The general effect of the 
constructions with their terraces, flights of steps, and 
trees, is very curious. The chapels are said to have been 
designed by Scamozzi, and decorated by Palma the 
Younger ; unfortunately, the dilapidation of the paint- 
ings makes it impossible to form an opinion. Moreover, 
I did not come here in search of artistic impressions. On 
this fine autumn afternoon I prefer to climb up to the 
wood which crowns the hill. The delicate foliage of the 
pines filters the rays of the sinking sun, and between the 
resinous trunks there are views in every direction. To 
the north, behind the thickets of Battaglia and Abano, 
the towers and domes of Padua are outlined ; to the south, 
the great valleys of the Po and the Adige, striped with 
a multitude of roads and canals, faint into the vapour 
that rises from the damp earth. To the west the eye 
takes in a portion of the Euganean Hills, studded with 
villages, " rosy as the shells one finds by myriads on their 
soil," to quote d'Annunzio. To the east the Venetian 
plain stretches away as far as Chioggia, which is visible 
in clear weather. 



218 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 



CHAPTER XII 

ESTE 

Fra r Adige e la Brent a a pie' de' colli 
ch'al troiano Antenor piacquero tanto 
con le sulfuree vene e rivi moUi, 
con lieti solchi e prati ameni accanto. . . .^ 

Tetus did Ariosto sing the happy position of Este, at 
the foot of the last of the Euganean Hills, between the 
Adige and the Brenta. Why is this city, which seems 
to keep something of the glory of its past greatness, so 
neglected by travellers ? The Guides scarcely mention 
it, and Burckhardt would not go out of his way to see 
its art-treasures. Almost on the road between Padua 
and Ferrara, tourists pass it by, although it offers them 
some noble memories, a most attractive aspect, a few 
good pictures, and a collection of antiquities perfectly 
arranged in a very modern museum. Older than Rome, 
it claims to have been founded by Ateste after the taking 
of Troy, the while his comrade Antenor was founding 
Padua. One of its historians declares it to be so ancient 
and so famous that it need envy no other city in the 
world. He exaggerates ; but we must admit that in 
the Roman period it had an importance due to the artistic 
wealth hidden beneath its soil, and that in more modern 
times it was the cradle of one of the most illustrious 

^ Between the Adige and the Brenta at the foot of those hills 
which delighted the Trojan Antenor with their veins of sulphur 
and gentle slopes; with joyous furrow and pleasant meadows 
beside them. 



HOUSE OF ESTE 219 

families of Italy, whose blood still flows in the veins 
of the royal houses of England and Austria-Hungary. 
The Estes reached the summit of their glory in the 13th 
century, in the person of the terrible Obizzo, the tyrant 
whom Dante shows us strangled by his own son : 

Ch* e biondo 
e Obizzo da Esti, il qual per vero 
fu spenta dal figliastro su nel mondo.^ 

Although it has long declined from its former state, 
Este has retained its grand air. Its avenues are wide 
and well kept, and bordered by arcaded houses nearly all 
differing in arrangement and decoration. Its central 
square has a dignified appearance with its palaces, the 
town-hall, the law-courts, and the state pawn-shop. In 
the centre there is a tall flagstaff supported by four 
lions in the Venetian manner. Gates flanked by turrets 
command the entrances to the town. At the end of the 
streets the horizon is shut off, here by the green slopes of 
sunny hiUs, studded with villas, gardens, vineyards and 
olive-yards, there by the walls of the castle built in the 
14th century by Ubertino of Carrara. Few ruins are 
more evocative than these fragmentary structures of 
red brick overgrown with ivy. Stacks of straw lean 
against the old towers on which in spring-time the almond- 
trees drop a litter of rosy petals. Flowers grow in the 
cracks of the masonry, adding their poetry to the melan- 
choly of things ; an exiled poppy or a rose-bush against 
a rampart is often lovelier than a skilfully arranged 
flower-bed. 

The basilica of Santa Tecla stands close beside the 
castle. Its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, 
and the history of its Chapter is one of the most glorious 

1 . . . that fair one is Obizzo of Este, he who was destroyed 
by his evil step-son in the world above. 



220 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of Italian chronicles. The present building dates only 
from the 18th century ; that which preceded it was 
destroyed by an earthquake on a certain Palm Sunday 
at the very moment, says tradition, when the priest was 
reading the Gospel words ; terra mota est. It seems that 
the church and its clergy still enjoy special honours and 
privileges ; but to me, its chief title to glory is the Tiepolo 
in the choir, where it was placed in 1757, and has 
remained to this day. It is one of the painter's master- 
pieces, and, perhaps, his best picture in oils. With the 
splendours of the ceiling at Stra fresh in my mind, I 
cannot but admire once more the variety of the marvel- 
lous decorator. Just as the fresco is brilliant and lumi- 
nous, so here the canvas has the gray, subdued tonality 
suitable to the subject : S. Thecla delivering Este 
from the 'plague. This large canvas — about 21 feet by 
12 feet — suggests certain modern works in its dramatic 
intensity. Against the background of clouds which 
lower ominously over the stricken city, the saint stands 
out in vigorous reHef . God appears in the sky and drives 
away the demon of Plague, a boldly foreshortened 
apparition. In the foreground, among a group of 
the dying, a weeping child clasps the body of his expiring 
mother. Behind, Este appears with its towers and the 
two pointed mountains which close the horizon so 
picturesquely. Here, again, I agree with Signor 
Molmenti's opinion : *' Everything is admirable in this 
composition : the grandeur of the design, the wonderful 
effect of relief, the variety of the attitudes, the expression 
of the faces, and the science of the foreshortening." 

Not far from the ruins of the Castle and the church, on 
the hill against which Este leans, is the villa Byron took 
in 1817, and lent the following year to his friend Shelley. 
An inscription records the double memory : Giorgio, 
Lord Byron, nel 1817 e 1818 dimord in questa villa ; 



SHELLEY AT ESTE 221 

ebhe hospite Shelley e qui scriveva spaziando per la naiura 
e il castello con ala immensa di fantasia }■ 

The view is most beautiful, and I can understand how 
it must have enchanted romantic eyes. " Behind us," 
writes Shelley in a letter, " are the Euganean Hills . . . 
At the end of our garden is an extensive Gothic castle, 
now the habitation of owls and bats. . . . We see before 
us the wide flat plain of Lombardy, in which we see the 
sun and moon rise and set, and the evening star, and 
all the golden magnificence of autumnal clouds. . . ." 
I, too, wandered dreaming in these gardens, where the 
passionate hearts of those young Englishmen once 
throbbed. The light is failing, and I have not seen 
Cima's Madonna, nor the fine Medusa in the Museum. 
But what of that ! It was here that Shelley wrote the 
Lines written in the Euganean Hills. The panorama 
is unchanged, save that the railway now cuts across the 
plain. But the outline of the old walls is the same, and 
already the bats are beginning their blundering flight. 
This is the hour dear to lovers, the twilight hour when 
hand seeks hand. Ah ! let us drink in its sweetness 
a little longer ! Before descending to the town, let us 
watch the golden splendour of the autumn clouds 
djdng on the horizon, as on so many bygone evenings. 

^ George, Lord Byron, lived in this villa in 1817 and 1818; 
here Shelley was his guest, and here he wrote, with vast jflights of 
imagination, wandering between the castle and nature. 



222 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER XIII 

ABQUl 

If I had not long been accustomed to Italian vetturini, 
I should never have embarked at Este in the strange 
landau which must have come out of the museum of 
antiquities. I know, of course, that these gaunt horses, 
which seem already tired before they start, end by 
covering considerable distances ; but really, to-day, 
my driver carries his system rather too far. We fall 
into a walk when the ground rises, of course ; then, 
again, when it is level, to let the horse get his wind ; and, 
thirdly, when it descends, that he may not slip. But 
I accept aU this with a good grace. In the first place, 
I know that the road is bad, and cut out of the rock in 
rather primitive fashion. And then, the day promises to 
be so fine, the air is so pure and luminous, the sun so 
pleasant that I am in no sort of hurry to arrive. Once 
more I am rejoicing in those Italian hours when, free 
from care, and far from the too frequented roads, I am 
able to taste the deUght of life. Everything is smiling 
around me, the fertile country, the golden vines, the 
people at the farm-doors, the children playing in the 
ditches. And dipping into a local guide-book, I read a 
page of Luigi Cornaro, who, as long ago as the 15th 
century, celebrated the joy of this district which he 
called the land delF allegrezza e del riso (of joy and 
laughter). 

At Baone the road makes a great ditour and offers 
a splendid view of Este ; then at the intersection of the 
MonseUce road, it turns sharply towards the north 
and makes for Arqu4, the houses of which now become 



ROAD TO ARQUA 223 

visible. An old belfry stands out against the sky in a 
nest of verdure. Above rises the amphitheatre of the 
Euganean Hills, now rounded like the balloon-hke Vosges, 
now pointed and regular as pyramids. Certain truncated 
cones recalling the mountains of Auvergne, explain the 
comparison which came naturally to M. Pierre de 
Nolhac's mind when he made this same pilgrimage :— 

Ma Limagne courbe des lignes 
Pareilles sur ees horizons ; 
Les colHnes sont moins^insignes, 
Mais elle y mele aussi les vignes 
Et les profondes frondaisons . . .^ 

Strange and mighty magic of Italy, whose hold on 
our beauty-loving souls is so strong that we delight to 
discover some of its aspects in the comers of France 
dearest to us ! 

Before reaching Arqua we cross a marshy plain, 
no doubt the bed of a dried up lake. White oxen, yoked 
in six, eight and even ten pairs, as I saw them in. the 
neighbourhood of Ferrara, are ploughing a rich soil, 
which turns over in clods of intense black under the 
ploughshare, making a violent contrast with the light 
green of the willows that fringe the road. Then the 
blue mountains draw nearer. The road rises in a sunny 
circus, where luxuriant vines mingle with figs and oHves. 
In the gardens laurels, magnoUas, camellias and pome- 
granates grow strongly and vigorously in the open air. 
At the foot of Monte Ventolone, which protects them 
against the cold winds, the hills open out in the shape of 
a bow ; perhaps this is the origin of the name Arqu^. 
The rise is so steep that I get out of the carriage, just by 

^ My Limagne curves in lines like these on its horizons ; the 
hills are less notable, but vines and dense foliage mingle there 
as here. 



224 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

the fountain Petrarch caused to be built, as the inscrip- 
tion tells us : 

Fonti Numen adest ; lymphas, pius hospes, adora 
Unde bibens cecinit digna Petrarcha Deo.^ 

The village on the hill-top does not possess a spring, 
and even to-day depends upon this one fountain. The 
peasant-women come to draw water in buckets of every 
shape which they carry hanging from the two ends of a 
long curved branch, after the ancient custom which 
still prevails neariy everywhere in Italy. 

I must confess that I was not unmoved on entering the 
poet's village ; but I did not expect to be with him so 
quickly. A few paces brought me to the tomb in which, 
six years after his death, he was laid by his son-in-law, 
Francesco di Brossano. How impressive is this space 
in front of the poor flat fagade of the church, with the 
simple sarcophagus of red marble resting on four 
columns ! From the edge of the terrace the view extends 
over the houses of the village and the landscape. From 
a garden below the level of the square two huge cypresses 
shoot aloft to watch, silent and motionless, over the tomb. 
Below the bronze bust, which was let into the stone in the 
16th century, there is an epitaph which states that this 
tomb contains the bones of Petrarch. However, they 
are not complete, for on May 27th, 1630, a Dominican 
of Portogruaro broke off an angle of the tomb, and 
succeeded in abstracting an arm. Was it in order to 
present it to Florence, as has been said ? Perhaps, for 
it is quite certain that all Italy envied the glory of 
Arqua. Boccaccio praised the village for having pre- 
served the bones of the illustrious old man, and blamed 
Florence who had been unable to retain her son. *' As 

1 The Spirit is present at the f omitain. O pious guest ! adore 
the waters whence drinking, Petrarch sang songs worthy of God. 



PETRARCH'S HOUSE 225 

a Florentine I envy Arqua, which, hitherto obscure, will 
become famous among the nations. The sailor returning 
from distant shores will gaze with emotion at the 
Euganean Hills, and will say to his companions : ' At 
the foot of those hills Petrarch is sleeping.' " 

Did it possess this tomb only, Arqua would indeed 
be immortal. But it jealously guards another relic, 
the house where Laura's lover spent his last years. 
The road to this is very steep ; it cannot have changed 
much since the day when the glorious coJB&n was borne 
down in the midst of the kneeling people between these 
same walls and over these same stones. 

In front of the house is a little garden, modern unfortu- 
nately, for it does not appear in the engravings of last 
century ; but there must have been one like it in the 
time of Petrarch. He loved his trees and flowers 
almost as much as his books, which is saying a good deal 
when we remember what a bibliophile he was. He was 
one of the first to appreciate natural scenery, and his 
surname, Silvanus, indicates his tastes. He compiled 
a very elaborate journal of gardening. One of his 
letters is headed : " From the shade of a chestnut- tree." 
In his old age his taste for the country increased, as is 
often the case ; towards the end of life we draw nearer 
to the earth, as if to make a friend of that which will 
soon receive us. The splendour of noisy cities no longer 
charms eyes that are about to close ; there is nothing so 
pleasant to the old as the warmth and radiance of 
sunshine. This is what Byron expresses in the fine 
verses of Childe Harold in which he evokes Petrarch : 
" If from society we learn to live, 'tis solitude should 
teach us how to die." In several of his last letters, the 
poet speaks of his garden, and notably of the tree that 
was so dear to him, the laurel with whose leaves he had 
been crowned in the Capitol, and whose name was 

Q 



226 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

associated with that of his unforgotten love. Symbol 
of love and glory — that glory which was even more to 
him than love — to the end he sang the charm 

Del dolce lauro e sua vista fiorita.^ 

Tradition says that all the laurels were killed by frost 
in the course of the hard winter after Petrarch's death ; 
those in his garden cannot have escaped. And yet it is 
not impossible that the one which is still growing against 
the wall of the house may be a distant off-shoot of those 
he planted. This thought makes me hesitate a moment 
before taking the spray a hand holds out to me .... 
O poet, I have no claim to it save my pious admiration 
of thee ! But I know thou wouldst not blame an impulse 
dictated by love. 

A narrow staircase leads to a Httle loggia upheld by 
three columns. Everything is on a small scale in the 
garden and the house, as was necessary for the old man 
who was in constant need of a support within reach of 
his hand. The lover of soHtude had not hesitated between 
the palace offered to him by the city of Venice in exchange 
for the gift of his books, and the quiet retreat among the 
Euganean Halls proposed by Francesco da Carrara. 
" Oh ! " he wrote to a friend at Parma, " I am sure that 
were you to see my new Helicon you would never want 
to leave it." The house, which is very simple, has a 
vestibule into which the different rooms open ; nearly 
all of them have balconies whence there are views 
either of the terraced hills sheltering each other from the 
winds, or, across the roofs of the village, of the wide 
plain of Battaglia. 

The house in which a great writer has lived always 
appeals to our sensibilities, especially when it is in a 
village, or, better stiU, in the midst of fields. This is 
^ Of the sweet laurel and its flowery aspect. 



PETRARCH'S CAT 227 

because nature does not change, and that after many 
centuries we find the same mountains and the same 
rivers, very often the same forests and the same meadows. 
On the other hand, a very few years suffice to change the 
appearance of a town ; and even when the house of the 
poet is intact, all around it may be modified. We cannot 
recall the aspect and atmosphere of the Florence in 
which Dante lived. But in this little village of Arqua, 
nothing has stirred. Things have remained so essenti- 
ally the same that, thinking of him, I cannot look at 
them without emotion. From this loggia, I see what 
Petrarch used to see. In its precision and intimacy, 
after a lapse of more than six centuries, it ia one of the 
most moving of literary souvenirs. I can so readily 
imagine the poet contemplating the village and the vine- 
clad hillsides, and exchanging courteous greetings with 
the passing peasants, who could only dimly understand 
how this bent, white-haired old man, so like other old 
men, could be at once so simple and so glorious. How 
pathetic is this house in which he spent his last days, 
while Death was coming to meet him ! But it is a pity 
that its guardians have not preserved it intact, or even 
empty, instead of filling it with a number of incongruous 
accessories. The bare walls would have been so infinitely 
more thrilling than the indifferent frescoes of hooded 
Petrarchs and flower-crowned Lauras. I do not know 
whether the armchair and the cupboard belonged to the 
poet. The only well attested relic— O irony of fate ! — 
is the mummy of his cat, which is exhibited in a niche, 
behind glass. The exhibition is as doubtful in taste as 
the verses of a certain Quarengo written below, which 
I transcribe as a curiosity. The cat is supposed to speak : 
" The Tuscan poet burned with a double flame ; I was 
his greatest, Laura his second love. Why do you laugh ? 
If Laura was worthy of him by her divine beauty, so 

Q 2 



228 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

was I by my fidelity. If she excited his poetic genius, 
it was owing to my vigils that his writings did not become 
the prey of the terrible rodents. Living, I kept the rats 
away ; dead, I still frighten them, and in my inanimate 
body my ancient fidelity survives." Would it not 
have been more appropriate to have inscribed the 
famous and beautiful sonnet written by Alfieri on the 
occasion of a visit to Arqua : 

O cameretta, che gi& in te chiudesti 

Quel grande, alia cui fama angusto h il mondo ; 

Quel si gentil d'amor mastro profondo 

Per cui Laura ebbe in terra onor celesti.^ 

The collection of old registers signed by visitors is 
interesting. I looked for the name of Byron, which 
appears twice, in 1817 and 1821. I forget in which of 
his works it is that he scoffs at Petrarch as an " old 
dotard," and *' lachrymose metaphysician." One of 
his impulsive and passionate temperament had, of 
course, little sympathy for fidelity in love, and, no 
doubt, preferred husbands of the type of Guiccioli to 
Laura's spouse. However, this was probably a mere 
flippant sally, for which the noble verses in Ghilde Harold 
make ample amends. I did not find in these entries the 
name of Stendhal, who tells us that he spent four days 
at Arqua and who must certainly have visited the house 
of the poet, though he does not mention it. Yet he 
did not lack time to note his impressions, for he wrote 
here a long dissertation upon the difference in the con- 
ception of happiness as understood by Italians and by 
Frenchmen. Perhaps he agreed with Chateaubriand, 
who rallied those who seek to prolong their memory by 

* O little room which formerly enclosed that great man, for 
whose fame the world is all too narrow ; that gracious one, the 
profound master of love, through whom Laura enjoyed celestial 
honoiirs while still on earth. 



DEATH OF PETRARCH 229 

attaching a souvenir of their passage to famous places. 
One day, when the author of the Mimoires d'outre 
Tombe was trying to read a name he thought he recog- 
nised on the walls of Hadrian's villa, a bird flew out of 
a tuft of ivy and shook down a few drops of rain : 
the name had disappeared. 

The only place in the house which has been scrupulously 
respected is the little library adjoining his bedroom, 
to which Petrarch loved to retreat. There he was alone 
and quiet. He escaped from the importunate, from 
visitors, from all who interrupted his work. " Reading 
writing, and meditating are still," he says, " as in my 
youth, my life and my delight. I am only surprised that 
after so much labour, I know so little." He feels that 
the hours are doubly precious and urge him on. " I 
hasten. I can sleep when I am under the earth." 
Going to rest very early, like the peasants of Arqu^, 
he rose before them, in the middle of the night, lighted 
the little lamp hanging above his desk, and worked till 
dawn. It was thus his servants found him one July 
morning bending over a book. As they had often seen 
him in this attitude, they paid no particular attention. 
Petrarch had died in the night. M. Pierre de Nolhac 
believes that he discovered the very manuscript on 
which the poet's trembling hand ceased to write, in a 
reference to Cicero's works. He supposes that Petrarch 
made an effort to go and verify the reference and that 
he fainted as he sat down again. I prefer the older 
version, according to which his head had fallen inert on 
the pages of his beloved Virgil. True, Cicero and Virgil 
were almost equally the objects of his worship, and to 
the end of his life he offered them a joint homage : 

Questi son gli occhi della lingua nostra.* 
* These are the eyes of our tongue. 



230 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

But he reserved his greatest tenderness for the poet. He 
had sought for memories of him at Mantua. Virgil's 
works were always with him, even when he was travel- 
ling. All bibliophiles know the manuscript on vellum, 
annotated by him, which is the glory of the Ambrosiana 
Library, and was for a time the pride of the Biblio- 
theque Nationale under Napoleon I. I like to think 
that this was the volume he took up to distract himself 
for a moment from his erudite labours. He read a few 
verses of the poet who was born on the other side of the 
Euganean Hills ; he heard the larks sending up their 
joyous greeting to the new day ; and he went out gently 
with the night, as a lamp without oil goes out in the 
freshness of morning. Thus the last breath of Laura's 
poet would have been breathed on the verses of the swan 
of Mantua. And if it be true that those in whom the 
pure flame of poetry has burned gather together in the 
sacred wood of the Muses, he who had already guided 
Dante in his immortal journey must have received 
Petrarch on the threshold of the temple of Apollo, and 
invited him to sit by his side, under the recovered shade 
of unfading laurel. 



TITIAN'S ^^ANNUNCIATION" 231 



CHAPTER XIV 

TREVISO 

Teeviso is situated on the Sile, and in the centre of 
the town itself receives a little stream, the Botteniga, 
formerly called the Cagnan, as is recorded in a verse of 
the Paradiso, where Dante indicates Treviso as 

, . . Dove Sile e Cagnan s'accompagna.^ 

The two rivers divide ii^to numerous arms which feed 
a series of canals and ditches. Many gardens overhang 
the waters with verdure ; certain vistas recall comers 
of Venice and even of Bruges. 

I have been to Treviso so often that this year, untram- 
melled by the need to learn and to know, I can give 
myseK up to the pleasures of a return to familiar scenes, 
and the mere deUght of the eye. How often I have 
sauntered beneath the arcades of its tortuous streets, 
in its Piazza dei Signori surrounded by battlemented 
palaces, and above all, along the ancient ramparts, now 
transformed into wide promenades shaded by enormous 
trees, whence there is such a fine view of the snowy Alps 
in early spring. How pleasant it is to hear once more the 
lisping, supple, liquid Venetian dialect ; it was of this 
Byron must have been thinking rather than of Italian 
in general, when, in his little poem Beppo he praises that 
tongue, " which melts like kisses from a female mouth, 
and sounds as if it should be writ on satin." 

Treviso is justly proud of a few good pictures, notably 

^ Where Sile and Cagnan join company. 



232 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

the Annunciation by Titian. It was ordered by Canon 
Malchiostro for his chapel in the Cathedral, and still 
hangs there in its original splendid columned frame. 
It is not, indeed, equal to the Annunciation of the 
Scuola di San Bocco, painted eight years later ; but it 
has a kind of joyous ardour which has always charmed 
me. The youthful Virgin, dressed in a red gown and 
a magnificent dark blue mantle, kneels in a reverential 
attitude ; she is one of the simplest and noblest figures 
Titian ever painted. The Angel has none of the senti- 
mentaUty given him by certain painters ; he seems to 
have arrived in breathless flight, and the stormy sky 
behind him is full of great white clouds irradiated by 
rays of fire. There are some frescoes by Pordenone in 
this same Malchiostro Chapel which are not at all to my 
taste ; the artist was never more declamatory, I think, 
than when he tried to imitate the Michelangelo of the 
Sistine Chapel ; I recall a man whose enormous muscles 
have a deplorable effect in the foreground of the Adora- 
tion of the Magi, and in the dome, an interlacement of 
arms and legs which suggests a wrestling match rather 
than a religious scene. In the Uttle Museum, the poverty 
of which is accentuated by the pompous title of 
Pinacoteca, there is nothing remarkable but a good 
portrait by Lotto, who, according to the latest experts, 
was not bom at Treviso, but in Venice. It represents 
a Dominican monk, a Prior or Bursar ; his keys are in 
front of him and some pieces of money ; he is about to 
make up an account, and raising his head, he seems to 
be trjdng to remember some forgotten item. Lotto's 
manner is very evident in the serious, melancholy face. 
I must confess that I have never succeeded in dis- 
tinguishing the innumerable local painters, Dario da 
Treviso, Pier Maria Pennacchi, Girolamo da Treviso, 
Girolamo Pennacchi, Vincenzo da Treviso, etc. Only 



PARIS BORDONE 233 

a connoisseur would be able to differentiate amongst so 
many kindred names and almost identical works. But I 
looked again with pleasure at two little pictures by 
Girolamo da Treviso in the gallery leading to the 
Malchiostro Chapel, and I remember that one year, 
when I had come from Brescia, their silvery tones 
reminded me of Moretto. 

Though one of the two most famous of Trevisan 
painters, Rocco Marconi, is not to be seen at all in his 
native town, the other, Paris Bordone, is represented by 
a masterpiece, the Adoration of the Shepherds, in the 
Cathedral. Although it has been damaged by restora- 
tions, and is badly lighted and imperfectly displayed in a 
rectangular frame which is ill adapted to the oval of the 
upper part of the picture, we are still able to appreciate 
the glowing colour and the skilful grouping of the figures. 
It is one of the finest achievements of this unequal 
painter, who imitated all the Venetian masters in turn, 
and had a great reputation in his day. " I do not think, ' ' 
wrote Aretino in a letter to him, " that Raphael ever gave 
his divine figures a more angelic expression, so much 
grace, spirit and novelty {vaghezza, aria e novitade).'' 
Aretino, it is true, was never remarkable for moderation 
either in praise or blame, and it is not only the critics 
of to-day who sometimes overwhelm artists with exag- 
gerated eulogy ; but this may explain why Titian 
disliked this pupil, who was putting himself forward as 
a rival. Time has allotted his due place to each. Paris 
Bordone would hardly be remembered were he not 
the author of A Fisherman restoring the ring of St. Mark 
to the Doge, the charming anecdotic page of local history 
which Burckhardt considers the best ceremonial picture 
ever painted. Paris Bordone was an excellent artist 
of the second rank among that pleiad of painters which 
shone almost simultaneously in the sky of the Republic. 



234 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER XV 

CASTELFEANCO 

Of all the cities of the rich Venetian plain I know none 
more picturesque than the two neighbours and sometime 
rivals, Cittadella and Castelfranco. Still enclosed in 
their mediaeval walls, they are Hke stone baskets draped 
with ivy and filled with flowers : in spring wisteria, in 
June the perfumed tassels of the acacia, and again in 
autumn the late flowering wisterias. 

The ItaUans have preserved the exquisite Renaissance 
sense of beauty, and, save for a few faults of taste, 
nearly all very recent, they have instinctively applied 
it to their cities. Their adaptation of the castelli, 
citadels, weUs and moats of their decadent towns has 
always been most happy from the decorative point of 
view. I have already often noted the skiHul use they 
have made of those ancient structures which could not 
hold out against modem artillery for an hour. Instead 
of demolishing and levelliug as we have too often done in 
France, they respected the useless ramparts and trans- 
formed them into splendid shady promenades, whence the 
eye may range unwearied over prospects and horizons. 
Here they have done better still. They left the fortified 
enceinte of the 12th and 13th centuries untouched, and, 
at the foot of the walls and on the verges of the moat, 
they planned gardens, planted trees, and sowed grass 
and flowers, so that the two Httle towns have now a 
triple girdle of stone, of verdure and of water. They 
are like those mummies swathed in bandages which still 
retain their living form after thousands of years. 

A visit to Castelfranco is to me typical of one of those 



GIORGIONE'S "MADONNA" 235 

full and joyous Italian days when, in exquisite surround- 
ings and undisturbed by intruders, one may contem- 
plate a masterpiece at one's ease. There is nothing to 
disturb my wanderings under the plane-trees that are 
mirrored in the Musone, where the tall water-plants 
writhe like serpents. It is true that the Castle and the 
12th century walls are partly in ruins ; but a thick 
drapery of ivy, moss and Virginian creeper covers them 
as with a richly coloured mantle. The bricks show 
different tints in the changeful light, from pale pink to 
the dark red of clotted blood. The flowers that star 
the verdure add to the romantic air of these ruins. I 
know a corner where the grass plots are planted with Olea 
fragrans, whose incense fills the air when the clouds are 
fringed with purple and gold at sunset. 

The gate under the square tower before which a draw- 
bridge was once in use still gives access to the old town. 
One passes under a low dark porch dominated by the lion 
of S. Mark and a few steps brings one to the little square 
at the end of which is the Cathedral containing one of the 
most beautiful, if not the most-beautiful of all Giorgiones, 
and, in any case, the most fully authenticated. My 
first sight of it many years ago late in the afternoon when 
the descending sun shed a soft radiance on the canvas, 
gave me one of the strongest aesthetic emotions of my 
life. And each time I return, the feeling is almost as 
violent. Is this due to the composition, so curious in 
its geometrical precision ? Or to the three figures that 
hold themselves erect in rigid serenity ? Or to the 
exquisite landscape ? Or to the harmonious splendour 
of the colour ? I know not. But a poetry at once tender 
and severe breathes from the picture and moves me 
deeply. The Virgin, draped in a blue robe and an ample 
red mantle, is seated on a massive throne at the top of 
the canvas, as if to carry our eyes upwards to her, and 



236 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

from her to God. S. Francis and S. Liberale stand at 
her feet. The former may have been inspired by a 
figure of Bellini's, but the San Liberale is entirely 
original in conception and execution ; I know nothing 
but Mantegna's S. George at all comparable to it. The 
warrior wears a suit of burnished steel armour and a 
helmet ; with an air of martial gallantry he holds a tall 
standard with a white cross on a red ground, like the 
lance of a French dragoon. Stationed on either side of 
the throne, the two Saints form with the Virgin an almost 
perfect triangle ; the three figures confront the spectator 
and bear no relation to each other. I have too often found 
fault with this cold symmetry in the works of artists 
such as Perugino to be able to approve it here ; but , as 
a fact, the general effect is so majestic that it is easy to 
overlook the somewhat childish awkwardness of such 
an arrangement. The Virgin above all is unforgettable. 
To me there is no other so beautiful. There is a tradi- 
tion that, on the occasion of an ancient restoration, an 
appeal to the model written by Giorgione's own hand 
was found on the back of the canvas : 

Cara Cecilia 
Vieni; t'afliretta; 
II tuo t'aspetta 
Giorgio.^ 

We must forgive Cecilia her unpunctuality, if it was she 
who enabled the painter to trace the immortal features 
of his Virgin. But Giorgione must have idealised her, 
unlike most of his contemporaries who were content 
merely to reproduce the beautiful women of street or 
countryside for their Madonnas and Saints. He gave 
her an expression of lofty nobiHty, and under his brush 
the humble maiden of Castelfranco became one of the 
most perfect creations of Italian art. 

^ Dear Cecilia come, hasten. Giorgio is waiting for thee. 



INFLUENCE OF GIORGIONE 237 

After several days spent in studying the painters of 
this Venetian School, one is able to appreciate the 
importance of the revolution effected by Giorgione. 
True, the Bellini had already broken with mediaeval 
methods to some extent ; nevertheless, they remained 
masters of the 15th century by their artistic education, 
their choice of subject, and their somewhat dry precision. 
They felt vaguely that there were other horizons ; but 
for the discovery of these what was needed was a more 
spontaneous genius, an initiator, a kind of Fire-bearer, as 
d'Annunzio calls Giorgione in pages where he shows 
him less as a man than as a myth. " No poet's destiny 
on earth was comparable to his. We know nothing of 
him ; some have even gone so far as to deny his existence. 
His name is written on no authentic work. And yet 
all Venetian art was fired by his revelation ; it was from 
him that Titian learned to infuse warm blood into the 
veins of his creatures. Indeed, what Giorgione repre- 
sents in art is an Epiphany of Fire. He deserves the 
title of Fire-bearer no less than Prometheus." This 
analogy of fire seems to suggest itself naturally to the 
pens of those who write of him. " Lo spirito di Bellini,'* 
declares Venturi, " ma scaldato da urC anima di fuoco.'* ^ 
And when Italians speak of the Giorgionesque fire, 
they mean not only that warmth of colour characteristic 
of him, but also that spiritual flame, that poetry which 
burns and devours. This explains the fascination of 
Giorgione for the poets of aU times and all countries, 
a fascination due not only to the mystery of his life and 
death, but to his work itself. It was a copy of the 
Concert Ghampetre which Musset bought on credit, in 
the face of his housekeeper's objections, telling her that 
she could lay his place at table opposite the picture, and 
cut down the meal by one dish daily. 

^ *' The spirit of Bellini, but warmed by a soul of fire." 



238 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Another of Giorgione's merits is that he definitely 
directed Venetian painting towards landscape. Of 
course, he was still far from the modern conception, by 
which the artist paints Nature for itself, seeking only 
to render the impression he receives from it ; but he 
was equally remote from the antique conception. For 
centuries no one had drea^nt of rebelling agaiust the rule 
formulated by Plato in his Gritias : "If an artist has 
to paint the earth, mountains, rivers, a forest, or the 
sky ... he need only represent them in a fairly credible 
manner ... a vague, illusory sketch will satisfy us." 
Was not this, indeed, the theory of Botticelli, who main- 
tained that one had only to throw a sponge soaked in 
colours against a wall in order to obtain an effect com- 
parable to that of the finest landscapes ? I know of 
certain ultra-modern schools which seem to be inspired by 
the same principles. But, fundamentally, we must see in 
Plato's pronouncement as in Botticelli's gibe the thesis 
that the artist must confine himself to the study of man, 
and the portrayal of the complexities of the soul. Even 
in the works of Botticelli — as in those of most Tuscan 
and Umbrian painters — there are charming landscapes 
which were obtained not with " a sponge soaked in 
colours," but with a very skilful and precise brush ; 
but they are mainly imaginary, and are quite indifferent 
to truth ; they serve merely to fill in the background 
of the picture. The Venetians, on the other haind, 
sought to paint real landscapes ; as Stendhal has very 
justly pointed out : " The Venetian School seems to have 
been born merely from the attentive contemplation of 
the effects of Nature, and the almost mechanical and 
instinctive imitation of the pictures with which it deHghts 
our eyes." More than any of his colleagues, Giorgione 
had the soul of the landscape-painter, and was deeply 
interested in the problems of light and of chiaroscuro. 



GIORGIONE'S ''DAPHNE" 239 

We know from a letter of Isabella d'Este's that he had 
painted a night-scene which the princess wished to 
possess. True, he never copied a tree, a hill, or a stream 
in the same manner as the Dutchmen, or some of our 
modern painters ; he sought inspiration from his native 
land for the scenes in which he placed the action of his 
pictures, and ideaHsed it, as he ideaUsed Cecilia. Thus 
he transports us to a land which is at once Venetia and 
the Elysian Fields, a sort of fatherland of the ideal, 
as Yriarte says : "a lovely dream-world which belongs 
only to poets, painters, musicians, inspired artists, to 
those whose brows Heaven has marked with a divine 
ray, and which it has given to man to lull his pain and 
charm his hasty passage on earth." 

■X- * -x- * ^- 

It is this fusion of the real and the ideal that delights 
me in the Giorgione of the Patriarchal Seminary at 
Venice, where I have come to spend my last afternoon. 
The Daphne pursued by Apollo is a little picture on wood 
which was formerly the panel of a marriage-chest. 
Figures and landscapes combine in a suave harmony, 
a warm red tonality throws Daphne's creamy carnations 
and white tunic into strong relief. It is the gem of this 
tiny museum, a haunt of peace, although it adjoins the 
port of San Marco. I love its dehcious little garden, 
crowded with trees and flowers. Pines raise their 
delicate foHage against the blue sky. Tall cypresses, 
magnolias with polished leaves, clumps of oleanders, ivy 
and wisteria climbing everywhere, on the balustrades, 
on the stair-rails, on the trunks of the trees, form a 
regular entanglement of verdure. Above the walls 
one sees the turrets of the Salute, and on the side towards 
the port, the gently swaying masts of vessels. Like 
the invisible music of the old palaces on the Grand 
Canal, where the performers played concealed behind 



240 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

the hangings, the occasional noises of the town arrive 
here so precise and yet so muffled that they seem at 
once very distant and very near. Here there are none 
of those hurrying tourists who spoil the most beautiful 
things. And how well this scene harmonises with my 
melancholy ! To-morrow I shall be far away. " I 
must go, alas ! " wrote Gebhart on leaving Athens. " I 
am about to turn over another page of my youth, and 
to turn my back on the East. If it should be for the last 
time . . . ! " But what is the use of analysing anew 
the laments born of the sadness of farewells ? At the 
close of these Italian hours I should be ungrateful were 
I to forget that not one of them leaves me a memory of 
anything but happiness. They might aU be marked 
by the old Venetian sundial on which I read long ago, 
during my first visit ; Horas non numero nisi serenas 
(I only count the sunny hours). 



PART V 
TYROL, FRIULI. AND NEW ITALY 



R 



CHAPTER I 

THE DOLOMITES 

I HAD such pleasant memories of Bolzano as I had seen 
it each time I had entered Italy from the Brenner Pass, 
that this year I determined to spend a few days there 
and enter Venetia by way of the Dolomites, and the 
Italian Tyrol. Bolzano has all the Latin grace. It 
smiles amidst sunshine and flowers. On the slopes of 
its hills, figs and pomegranates ripen at the foot of black 
cypresses and evergreen laurels. The rich and fertile 
country, the luxuriant vines, the houses, the farms, some 
of which have gaily painted f agades, the open air markets, 
the booths, the faces, the flexible patois, which recalls 
the lisping Venetian dialect, and, above all, the blue 
vault of a sky at once profound and ethereal, all proclaim 
the joy of life. The descent into Italy on the Italian 
slopes is always intoxicating, and I love the hospitable 
air of the little towns that present themselves after, 
and occasionally before, one crosses the frontier, spots 
where Alpine dignity has met and mingled with Southern 
sweetness. There can be nothing more exquisite than 
this first easy contact which announces the approach of 
the fair enchantresses of the South, and never is this 
sense of warm well-being more pleasurable than after a 
sojourn in Switzerland, or Bavaria. To leave Lausanne, 
Lucerne, or Munich on a dull, damp morning, to pass 
through landscapes grandiose but lacking colour, then 
gradually to see the sky becoming bluer and brighter, 

243 R 2 



244 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

the sun piercing the clouds and spreading in golden pools 
over the festal country, to feel one's numbed limbs 
relax and one's eyes open more widely to the light — 
these are the most perfect physical joys I know, and I 
understand the exaltation of all those who experience 
them. Sweet Italy, I, for one, will never ridicule thy 
lovers, even when passion carries them away, for how 
often I have longed to clasp thee as Paolo clasped 
Francesca : 

la bocca mi bacio, tutto tremante . . .^ 

On the contrary, their extravagance delights me. I was 
charmed the other day when reading the elder Dumas' 
Voyage en Suisse to find him becoming almost incoherent 
as soon as he felt the first breath of Lombard air in the 
Simplon Pass, and saw the flat-roofed white houses 
warming themselves in the sun like swans. His romanti- 
cism brims over as he salutes Italy, the ancient Queen, 
the eternal coquette, the Armida of all the ages, who 
sends her women and her flowers to greet you. ' ' Instead 
of the goitrous peasants of the Valais one meets at every 
step beautiful vintagers with pale skins, velvety eyes 
and soft, swift speech. The sky is pure, the air warm, 
and one recognises, as Plutarch says, the land beloved 
of the gods, the holy land, the happy land which neither 
barbarian invasion nor civil disorder has been able to 
rob of the gifts bestowed on it by Heaven." In con- 
nection with Bolzano I have already spoken of Goethe's 
enthusiasm, which to some has seemed rather childish. 
In the quiet atmosphere of a study the calm of Montaigne, 
who, on his way from Augsburg to Venice, declared that 
Bolzano, " a town about the size of Libourne, is an 
unpleasant place," and praised only the wine and the 
bread, may seem more natural. But on this day of 

* And kissed me on the mouth, all tremulous. . . . 



DOLOMITES ROAD 245 

late summer, when I had left Munich in rain and cold, 
I was inclined, like the poet, to salute the very dust of 
the sunlit landscape. With what joy I greeted the valley 
of the Adige with its barriers of red porphjrry, and smiling 
Bolzano, whose horizon is closed by the bright walls of 
the Rosengarten, its mountain with the flowery name ! 
At Bolzano the new road of the Dolomites, opened to 
motor traffic some ten years ago, begins. There is no 
mountain road to be compared with it. There are others 
more remarkable, it is true, for their altitude and their 
views of snow-capped peaks and glaciers, although this 
climbs three peaks over 6,000 feet high ; but none can 
surpass it in magnificence and picturesqueness. The 
majestic landscapes it traverses change and vary inces- 
santly. There is none of that obsession which, in the 
presence of Mont Blanc, the Meije, or the Jungfrau 
produces that sense of suffocation which many are 
unable to bear. At each turn, at each loop, peaks arise 
with their fantastic rocks, clear-cut against the deep 
blue sky. They suggest the strange battlements of 
I know not what bombarded and dismantled citadel, 
and ruined towers shattered by shells. Their yellow and 
red calcareous walls, combining with the white of the 
snow, the blue of the sky, the green of the meadows and 
pine-trees, produce the most amazing colour-contrasts. 
No Alpine region can give any idea of these curious 
heights ; the only thing I know at all comparable to 
Dolomite crests, on a smaller scale and in a grayer aspect, 
is the almost unknown amphitheatre of Archiane, in 
the Diois Mountains. Their special charm is the addi- 
tion of sunshine and colour to the grandeur of lofty 
mountain scenery. It would take long months to become 
familiar with the varied and prodigious effects of light 
produced among these peaks by dawn, noon, twilight 
and moonlight ; and to witness one of those storms 



246 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

which are said to be unimaginable in their splendour. 
Lightnings flash almost^continuously on the rocks, the 
iron ore in which attracts the electricity ; the innumer- 
able peaks form so many turrets provided with lightning 
conductors. Sometimes great round clouds are driven 
by the south winds against these walls saturated with 
fluid, and explode into incessant sparks ; seen from 
below they look like huge Japanese lanterns, enormous 
globes constantly illuminated by internal lights. The 
sunsets, more especially, have a splendour unknown 
elsewhere and not to be rendered by pen or brush ; the 
water-colours of Jean^s, who lived several years in the 
district, are the only pictures which succeed in suggesting 
this incandescence of the peaks, this Alpenglut in all its 
magnificence. It sometimes happens that by an unex- 
plained phenomenon, certain summits become suddenly 
luminous an hour or two after sunset, and take on a crim- 
son glow like molten steel ; the effect of these mountains 
flaming out suddenly in the darkness is extraordinary. 
This road through the Dolomites, which is closed in the 
winter months and the strategic importance of which the 
Austrians tried to mask by a show of Alpine climbing, 
is a marvel of audacity both in conception and execution. 
Nowhere, indeed, are travelling facilities better under- 
stood and better organised than in Tyrol ; the character 
of the country has nearly always been respected ; there 
are few hotels on mountain peaks, funicular railways, 
waterfalls skilfully kept up, or grottoes artificially 
lighted. In one day, powerful motor-cars do the ninety 
miles that divide Bolzano from Cortina. They take 
the mountains by assault, climbing the interminable 
loops without a pause, rushing past forests, meadows, 
bridges and scattered villages, punctuating the vast 
silence with their panting breath, and halting on the 
summits, exhausted but proud of having overcome all 



ASCENT OF FALZAREGO 247 

obstacles. It really seems as if they felt like us the 
intoxication of speed ; a sort of communicative emotion 
makes us regulate the very pulsations of our hearts by 
their movement. 

The larger cars which cannot yet pass by the Karersee 
descend the valley of the Adige as far as the Auer, 
skirt the Latemar and rejoin the direct road from 
Bolzano to Cortina at Vigo di Fassa. After Canazei, 
which is dominated by sharp peaks like giants' fingers 
stretched threateningly heavenward, a series of loops, 
in the midst of pine-woods and pasture-lands, climb the 
Val Fassa between the enormous rocks of the Sella and 
the cloven sides of the Marmolata, placed like a sovereign 
in the centre of the chain it dominates. A tiny lake, 
intensely blue, is so well situated in a frame-work of 
pines and rocks that it looks as if it had been expressly 
designed to complete the picture. After the peak of 
Pordoi is crossed, the road runs down rapidly towards 
Arabba, in the green valley of the nascent Cordevole. 
It is an idyllic comer where the meadows in spring are 
sprinkled with lilies, coloured primroses, orchis and 
rampion — a vast, gaily-coloured carpet. Now, at the 
end of August, the grass is already brown and the 
autumn crocuses, tjje last flowers of the year, open their 
pale pink calices. The horizon is bounded by the 
Tofana, towards which the car rushes forward with a 
renewal of effort. This ascent of Falzarego at full speed 
is one of the grandest and most poignant experiences 
Imaginable. Nature becomes savage ; the loops in the 
road run over masses of fallen rock with astonishing 
audacity, and sometimes through tunnels. You cross 
the summit between the jagged rocks of the Croce da 
Lago and the Cinque Torri which seem indeed to be the 
ruins of an ancient feudal enceinte. Then comes the 
giddy rushing descent. A cry of admiration escapes 



248 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

one's lips : suddenly, at a bend of the road, the whole 
valley of Ampezzo is revealed, that marvellous amphi- 
theatre where, in the golden light of declining day, 
Cortina is enshrined, Cortina the unrivalled, the gem of 
the Tyrol, set in the emerald of its fields and encircled 
by the rubies and topazes of its rocks. 

Is it not one of the greatest joys of travel to come upon 
places which are at once so dear to us that we long to 
remain and spend the rest of our lives in them ? These 
are not always the most beautiful, and I know some mag- 
nificent spots which dazzle the eyes without touching 
the heart. Others, more reticent in their charm, attract 
us as if mysterious bonds were linking us to them. 
But there are some especially favoured, at once splendid 
and appealing, which win us so quickly that at a first 
glance we feel tears in our eyes, and stretch out our arms 
instinctively as if to draw them to our breast. 

In spite of all I had heard of Cortina, I did not expect 
to find it so lovely. No sight could be more superb than 
the sunset view from the Crepa, a sort of rocky headland 
thrusting out above the circus of Ampezzo. From this 
moderate eminence the valley is seen in its entirety, 
without that reduction of the landscape to a kind of 
relief map which occurs from many famous points of 
view. Cortina lies at the bottom of a green goblet 
filled with the perfume of its myriad-blossomed meadows. 
The sturdy mass of La Tofana, the long chain of the 
Pomagagnon dominated by Monte Cristallo, the Sorapiss, 
the Rochetta and the Cinque Torri encircle it on every 
side. Above the forests that cover their feet, the bare, 
jagged walls rise into the limpid atmosphere, taking on a 
greater intensity of light and colour as the shadow creeps 
over the valley. The light clouds driven towards them 
by the south wind (the sea-breeze, as it is called in the 
district) are caught between the sharp points, like 



VALLEYS OF THE BOITE 249 

strands of hair between the teeth of a yellow tortoise- 
shell comb. Gradually the reds and golds become 
stronger. The rocks seem to be on fire. The impres- 
sion is strange, unique. I understand why d'Annunzio 
when he wanted to suggest the illumination which occa- 
sionally lights up a face, " till it surpasses reality and 
stands out against the sky of destiny itself," could find 
no more vivid simile than the glow on these Dolomites, 
"when their crests alone are ablaze in the twilight, 
graven upon the gloom." 

But for the sudden freshness of the evening air as 
soon as the sun has disappeared, it would be difficult 
to realise that one is in the mountains, and one might 
suppose the atmosphere to be that of a plateau of the 
Apennines. The blue is as deep as above the Tuscan 
valleys ; when a cloud passes across it, it is so suffused 
with light that it looks more buoyant and transparent 
than a soap-bubble. The whole of this region is, more- 
over, Italian geographically and ethnographically. The 
valleys of the Boite and its affluents are in fact merely 
a canton of Cadore. Whereas on the other side of the 
peaks that bound the valley of Ampezzo the names have 
all the German harshness (Schluderbach, Toblach, 
Diirrenstein, etc.), here the names of towns, rivers, and 
mountains sing in the softest language of the world, 
the only one where^ every word ends in a vowel. The 
race, the costume, the affable manners no less than the 
speech reveal an evident community of origin. But 
after belonging to Venice, which gave it the title of 
Magnifica Comunita, it became Austrian in 1518, 
by virtue of the treaty between the Most Serene Republic 
and the Emperor Maximih'an. In 1866, when Venetia 
was restored to Italy, the Val d'Ampezzo was detached 
from Cadore and remained under Hapsburg domination. 

One spot, however, in the region has always been left 



250 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

to the Southern rival : this is Misurina, whose musical 
name is as harmonious as the shores of its little lake. 
The road which leads to it from Cortina is one of the 
most enchanting imaginable ; a writer has called it the 
passeggio romantico del Cadore (the romantic promenade 
of Cadore). It ascends along the Bigontina, now under 
the feathery foUage of larches, now through flower- 
enamelled meadows. Here and there, the air is sweet 
with the scent of new-mown hay. From the top of the 
Tre Croci, at the very foot of the pale rocks of the 
Cristallo, we overlook the whole amphitheatre of Am- 
pezzo, like a vast green scallop-shell covered with forests, 
meadows, cultivated fields and scattered houses. Then 
we go down into a fresh valley, where the grass is studded 
with tall blue gentians, and almost immediately we see 
the wide opening at the end of which the lake is sparkling 
in the sun. The scene is at once grandiose and gay. 
Above the water, greenly transparent as a fine emerald, 
woods and meadows, terraced on the hill-sides, form a 
first dark girdle, behind which rise some of the finest 
of the Dolomites : Cadini, the spurs of Cristallo, the 
imposing rocks of the Tre Cimi di Lavaredo, sharply 
cut as geometrical figures, Cyclopean pyramids, built 
by giants, and lofty Sorapiss stretching out its mighty 
snow-draped flanks. 

The lake is slumbering peacefully in the radiance of 
dying day. We are alone upon these banks which the 
approach of autumn has already left to solitude. There 
is not a ripple on the water ; when we lean over it, it 
sends back our moving figures set against the eternal 
background of peaks and forests reflected in its depths. 
But why has civilisation intruded, to tarnish this mirror 
by building- two huge hotels, so riotous in the season, 
so melancholy when their factitious life has been 
extinguished by the first touch of winter in the air ? 



CHAPTER II 

FROM COETINA TO PIEVE DI CADORE 

Because we have seen the birth of the automobile, 
and almost that of railways, we imagine that w^e are the 
inventors of travel. Nothing could be falser. The 
desire to see unknown countries existed in antiquity. 
Seneca, struck by this innate love of change in man, 
explains it by the divine essence within us, for, says he, 
" the nature of heavenly things is to be always in motion." 
Impelled by duty or necessity, by neurasthenia or 
snobbery — only the words are modem — by the love 
of pleasure, or the thirst for information, the ancients 
moved about a great deal, and Socrates, who never left 
Athens, because " he loved learning, and the trees and 
fields could teach him nothing," must have been an 
exception. In the Middle Ages and during the Renais- 
sance the longing for new horizons developed steadily. 
And never was the delight of going from town to town 
more keenly felt. To-day, even when we leave the rail- 
way for a motor-car, we do not come into real contact 
with the country. It is in a leisurely carriage, travel- 
ling a few leagues in a day, or, better still, with staff 
in hand, that one learns to know a land. It was the 
tourists of bygone centuries who tasted the pure joys 
of travel. Happy were the days described by Ruskin 
when one could pass slowly along the highways between 
woods and meadows, stopping to gather a flower at wiU ; 
when one could note the gradual changes of soil, trees, 
light, sky and faces ; when one submitted quietly to 
those natural conditions which, by distributing life in 
valleys and on mountains, give character to landscape 
and fashion its very soul. 

251 



252 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

Just as the easiest pleasures are not the highest, 
so the most comfortable journeys are not the most 
delightful. It is impossible to appreciate the charm 
of a region without transitions. A preparation, an 
initiation and a certain contemplative calm are necessary. 
In former times distance, difficulties and expectation 
invested the longed-for goal with mystery. Every day 
the traveller became worthier of the emotions he was 
going so far to experience. And I cannot believe that 
Italy can ever be so enchanting to us as to those artists 
of the past, who set off for it without means, but full 
of inspiration, stopping at Dijon, Lyons, or Avignon to 
earn the money necessary for the continuation of the 
journey, and gradually approaching the promised land 
with a fervour all the greater for their delays and 
sufferings. 

Let us for once do as they did, and take the eighteen 
miles between Cortina and Pieve on foot. We shall 
hardly find a more favourable opportunity. The day 
has risen fresh and luminous ; the road, which follows 
the course of the Boite, is shady and full of variety. 
What a primitive joy it is to walk thus in the early morn- 
ing, now along meadows so smoothly green that they 
lie like a velvet cloak on the soil, now in the middle 
of forests where larch and pine alternate. The inhabi- 
tants live out of doors, on the roads ; we feel they are 
rejoicing in the warm sunshine before the rigours of 
winter come upon them. The fruit-trees begin. Fields 
of clover and lucerne gleam rosily in the light. Houses 
and villages are more frequent. And yet we are still 
among lofty mountains, over 3,000 feet above the plain. 
The contrast between this valley and the stern mountains 
that surround it is exquisite. Who could be insensible 
to its seduction ? I remember how a few months 
before his death, Courajod loved to express his admira- 



BATTLE OF CADORE 253 

tion for these regions. " Love and delight in this incom- 
parable landscape, which that pedant Winckelmann 
could not appreciate. One of my greatest grievances 
against him and his sectarian band is his depreciation 
of Tyrol and the frontiers of Italy." 

The road, especially at San Vito and Venas, where it 
is constricted by the spurs of the Pelmo and the Antelao, 
runs through narrow defiles rich in heroic memories. 
All this Cadore region was admirable in its proud 
independence. Its unity of language, custom and senti- 
ment made it at all times a little Alpine republic. It was 
at first attached to the Patriarchate of Aquileia. When 
the latter submitted to Venice, the Republic summoned 
Cadore to do likewise. Interest and sympathy alike 
impelled the Cadorians to acquiesce, but first they in- 
sisted on being absolved from their oath of fealty by the 
Patriarch himself ; after which they made certain con- 
ditions which were all accepted by Venice. It was 
then they gave themselves up to Venice with cries of 
Eamus ad honos Venetos (Let us go to the good 
Venetians). For four centuries they lived governed 
by their own laws, under the protection of the lion of 
S. Mark ; and this had no more valiant defenders than 
they, as was seen in the famous Battle of Cadore, when 
the burghers of Pieve, aided by the peasants, surprised 
and routed Maximilian's Reiters. This was the battle 
Titian painted for the Doge's Palace ; unfortunately 
the work was destroyed in a fire ; we know it only by 
the fragmentary sketch in the Uffizi, and by Giulio 
Fontana's engraving. Later, in the middle of last 
century, during the wars of independence, the little 
towns of Cadore, true sentinels of the fatherland, 
struggled with the same ardour. The representatives 
of all the communes assembled in the old town-hall of 
Pieve and, like their forefathers, proclaimed their 



254 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

devotion to Venice : Votiamoci a San Marco (we 
vow ourselves to S. Mark). It was this heroism and this 
glorious past that Carducci sang in the splendid hymn 
he composed to the glory of Cadore, on the shores of 
Misurina, a veritable war-song in which there is, as it 
were, a roar of savage hatred against the barbarians of the 
North : 

Nati su I'ossa nostra, ferite, figliuoli, ferite 

sopra I'eterno barbaro : 

da nevai che di sangue tingemmo crosciate, macigni, 

valanghe, stritolatelo ! ^ 

But to-day, on this radiant morning, sunshine and per- 
fume incline us rather to reverie than to battle. After 
lunching in an inn at Borca, we set off again under a 
sun which makes our next stage rather more strenuous. 
As we descend, the road, bordered with houses, becomes 
like a long village street. Peasant women pass on their ^ 
way to the fountain, their copper pails shining at the 
ends of a long bow which they carry gracefully on their 
shoulders. At the turn of Tai, we see the houses of 
Pieve perched on the height ; we leave the road which 
continues on the right, to Belluno ; and after a short 
cUmb we enter the town of Titian. 

1 Bom upon our bones, strike, sons, strike the eternal barbarian ; 
from the snows which we dyed with our blood rain down rooks, 
avalanches, grind him to pieces ! 



CHAPTER III 

PIEVE DI OADOEE 

It is strange that a spot so picturesque and interesting 
should be so neglected by tourists as is Pieve di Cadore. 
It is barely mentioned by Baedeker, and the majority 
of travellers avoid it, and at Tai set their faces towards 
Venice, fascinated by its vicinity. True, the inn is not 
first-rate and there are no artistic treasures ; but few 
of the smaller Italian towns are more charmingly 
situated. Pieve is built on a kind of slope with green 
mamelons gay with gardens, in the midst of lawns 
and woods. There is not a street, not a road which does 
not mount and descend, twist and turn. The one little 
square is aslope and awry ; it was only just possible to 
find a tiny plateau for the statue of Titian on the level 
of the town-hall, which is itself all awry in relation to 
the buildings that surround the square. These have 
retained their original simple fa9ades. Pieve is unspoilt 
by modernism. In certain corners of Italy there are 
still to be found spots which have been undisturbed 
since the 15th century, and whose inhabitants, as M. 
Paul Bourget says, have an instinct for duration and 
preservation which the execrable mania for being up-to- 
date wiU not easily destroy. 

Slightly below the square, on the Piazzetta dell' 
Arsenale is the house where the greatest and most 
famous of Venetian painters was born. No surround- 
ings could have been better adapted to train and charm 
the eye of him who was to be the first of landscape- 
painters, and the unrivalled master of colour. Built 
on heights which rise pyramidally from the hollow of a 
valley surrounded on all sides by hills and peaks, Pieve 

255 



256 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

commands an incomparable variety of panoramas, 
where planes succeed each other in every direction, and 
at every distance. The play of light and shade changes 
every moment ; the eye learns freely and easily to 
seize all its variations. How Titian must have longed 
for these mountains, these forests, these restful meadows 
so grateful to the tired eye, each hot July, when the 
canals of Venice were breathing out their miasmas and 
sulphureous odours ! Like the prisoner spoken of by 
Milton, who escaped one summer morning and noticed 
in the country a thousand lovely things he had never 
remarked before, he felt a childlike joy when, leaving his 
house, he struck into the path of the hill which overlooks 
the amphitheatre of Pieve and is crowned by the ancient 
citadel, the guardian of Cadore. From the roads that run 
round it, there is a series of glimpses of the valleys below 
the town which, as far as the eye can reach, are seen 
stretching away between lofty green walls ; the most 
important is that of the Piave, the silvery track of which 
may be followed a very long way. Numerous villages 
are dotted like coral beads along the white ribbon of the 
roads which lead to Cortina, Belluno, or Auronzo. 
All the slopes are hung with woods and meadows. The 
country is not divided into fields of various crops ; it 
is like a great park which a rich owner has laid out, or, 
rather, which he has kept intact as Nature made it. 
Behind the first slopes the mountains rise, climbing one 
above the other. And towards the North, dominating 
aU, stand the dolomite peaks of the Marmarole Chain : 

Le Marmorole care al Vecellio.^ 

as Carducci calls them, a gigantic barrier of 9,000 feet 
which protects Pieve from cold winds. 

From the windows of his house Titian could see these 
^ The Marmarole dear to Vecellio. 



STATUE OF TITIAN 257 

Marmarole mountains. Above the roof of the villages 
and the first wooded heights, their sharp ridges stand 
out against the luminous sky. He saw them clothed 
with pale opalescent tints at dawn, and in the evening 
flaming through the gathering dusk. But it was not 
only these jagged peaks that haunted his imagination. 
Ail the Cadorine landscape lives again in his works. If 
we were to study them carefully from this point of view 
we could see that he has reproduced nearly every aspect 
of the scene : the pointed rocks, where a few meagre 
pines have found foothold, the smiling, flower-starred 
meadows, the dark woods, the villages on the heights 
or along the Piave, and, above all, the hardy, muscular 
types of beauty proper to mountaineers and woodmen. 
The peasants I encounter in the streets have not changed 
since he painted them ; they move, as it were, in the 
eternal, following a secular rhythm. They have the 
powerful heads and thick beards of his Apostles. At the 
inn, a notable of the town, who is having a discussion 
with one of his farmers, has the noble features, the wide 
forehead, the harsh hair and the keen eyes which 
Titian gave to himself in his own portraits at Florence 
and in Berlin. Ah ! how true a son he is of that race, 
which, on the road from Venice to Augsburg, unites the 
vigour of the North with the subtlety of the South; 
how true a son of that country where the keen air and 
habits of toil and sobriety ensure robust health. He 
is a typical son of Cadore, and his compatriots have a 
right to honour him. On the humble house which was 
the birthplace of him " who by his art prepared his 
country for independence," they have placed a memorial 
tablet, and in the little square they have given him a 
sober monument in excellent taste — one of the best 
modern statues I have seen — mth this simple inscrip- 
tion : " To Titian, from Cadore." 

S 



258 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

The district is not rich in the master's works ; the 
Holy Family in the church of Pieve is the only picture 
that can be plausibly ascribed to him. Local tradition 
identifies several of the figures with members of his 
family ; the Madonna is said to be Laviaia, whose face 
and form are known to us from other works ; the S. 
Joseph is supposed to be his father ; the Bishop his son 
Pomponio and the clerk Titian himseK ; on this last 
point there can be no doubt ; it is obviously a portrait 
of the master closely akin to that in the Madrid Gallery. 
Crowe and Cavalcaselle think his son Orazio was pro- 
bably the painter of this Holy Family, It is quite 
possible, for it is a mediocre work as a whole. But it 
seems a pity to destroy the tradition. And after all, 
what does it matter ? I did not come to Pieve to study 
Titian's pictures, but to see his native place, the land- 
scape where his eyes were opened to the beauty of the 
world, and where his artist soul awoke. It was here he 
lived in the woods and fields which are, for those who 
understand them, the best school of truth and simplicity. 
Nature has always taught love of sincerity, hatred of 
the artificial, the recondite, the affected, and here I 
evoke, not the illustrious portrait-painter of crowned 
heads, but him who was one of the first to love and paint 
Nature with all the faith and ardour of the peasant. 

No artist before him studied mountains and their 
various aspects. I do not say that he was a painter 
of mountains, or that he painted these for their own 
sakes ; but no artist of his day contemplated them more 
lovingly, or derived more picturesque motives from them. 
True, in certain Quattrocento pictures, the horizon is 
bounded by heights, and in the works of the Florentine 
masters we often recognise the outline of the Tuscan 
hiUs. The Venetians, who put landscapes in nearly 
all their works, were inspired by the scenery most fami- 



MOUNTAINS IN ANTIQUITY 259 

liar to them, and reproduced the mountain-slopes that 
fringe the Trevisan plain, or the silhouette of the FriuLian 
Mountains. In several of the canvases of Leonardo 
da Vinci, who never forgot the Dolomite Peaks, we 
recognise their craggy outlines as a background. But 
by all these masters, mountains are used merely as a 
decorative line. 

In this connection it is interesting to note how tardy 
was the awakening of artists and writers to the beauty 
of mountains. For a very long time, the only emotions 
inspired by Alpine and Apennine heights were distaste 
and terror. To the Latins the most perfect of panoramas 
was the cultivated plain. Lucretius knew no pleasure 
comparable to that of " lying beside a running stream, 
under the shade of a lofty tree," and Virgil loved nothing 
so much as " cultivated fields and the rivers that flow 
through valleys." The Alps were only crossed as a 
matter of necessity after a vow to Jupiter pro itu et 
reditu (for going and returning) and Claudian compares 
the sight of glaciers to that of the Gorgon, so great was 
his alarm thereat. The lofty summits were looked upon 
as the dread abodes of storm and inundation ; legend 
made them the homes of the maleficent gods. I can 
recall but two exceptions ; the Emperor Hadrian, one 
of the most fervent of Nature-worshippers — as he showed 
by his construction of his villa at TivoH — who climbed 
Mount Casius to see a sunrise, and Lucilius the Younger, 
that first-century poet who wrote a poem upon Etna. 
He was probably the only Latin writer who was sur- 
prised at the indifference of his contemporaries to natural 
spectacles ; he could not understand why they should 
exert themselves to go and see pictures and statues, 
and yet should not deign to take a journey in order 
to contemplate the works of Nature, " who is a much 
greater artist than man." This almost superstitious 

B 2 



260 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

feeling about mountains persisted through the Middle 
Ages. It is very curious to read Petrarch's account to 
Cardinal Giovanni Colonna of his ascent of Mont Ven- 
toux. He hesitated for a long time before undertaking 
it, and only made up his mind after seeing in Livy that 
King Philip went up Hemus. An old shepherd adjured 
him to turn back, predicting all sorts of misfortunes . . . 
He continued his ascent, but on reaching the top, his 
fear and agitation were so great that he was obliged to 
sit down. He opened the Confessions of S. Augustine, 
and lighted upon this passage, which alarmed him, and 
seemed to him to have been chosen by God Himself : 
" Men go to admire lofty mountains, and the sea raging 
afar off, and foaming torrents, and they forget them- 
selves in this contemplation." Until the 18th century 
and Jean Jacques Rousseau, no one was concerned with 
the beauty of Alpine scenery, and the whole group of 
Mont Blanc was designated vaguely as glaciers. Not 
before Calame and Ruskin do we find an artist and a 
writer who truly and passionately felt and loved the 
mountains. It is evident that they are ill-adapted to. 
painting ; they lack uncertainty, infinity ; they have 
too many precise details which arrest the eye ; they 
limit vision and reverie. Their colours, too, are crude 
and uniform. But here we must make exception of the 
Dolomites, so various in outline, so luminous, so richly 
and diversely coloured at every hour of the day, so^ 
transparent at times ; along their smooth vertical walls 
the eye and the mind mount easily to the azure. 

Among the Venetian painters who were nearly all 
natives of the mainland and often of the districts among 
the first spurs of the Alps, Titian was the most Northern. 
He was born on the confines of Tyrol in a lofty and very 
uneven country. An English writer, Mr, Gilbert, 
declares that while exploring Cadore, he identified all 



DEATH OF PETER MARTYR 261 

the mountaina in Titian's works. I think this is an 
exaggerated claim ; but there is no doubt that in his 
drawings and pictures we shall find, if not exact repro- 
ductions, at least many reminiscences and more or less 
faithful adaptations of the scenery he loved. Not 
long ago, looking at the portrait of Dona Isabella of 
Portugal in the Prado at Madrid, I recognised the 
panorama of Pieve, with its green hill in the foreground 
and its background of jagged peaks. In the Presenta- 
tion of the Virgin of the Accademia at Venice, the 
mountain that rises behind the group of participants is 
a fairly exact rendering of a part of the Marmarole 
Chain as Titian saw it from his window. No other painter 
of the period has left studies of landscape made on the 
spot. Titian loved heights, the precision and majesty 
their outUnes give to a composition, their boldness, the 
rich colour of their rocks. Whenever the subject 
allowed of it, he introduced the familiar aspects of his 
native place and associated them with his work, notably 
in the famous Death of Peter Martyr, which I laiow only 
from Cigoli's copy in the Church of SS. Giovanni and 
Paolo, substituted for the original after its destruction 
by fire in 1867. Vasari considered it the painter's 
masterpiece, and the Repubfic of Venice forbade its 
sale under pain of death. Constable, the great English 
landscape painter, also expressed the most enthusiastic 
admiration for it. And, indeed, Titian never showed 
more genius than in the intensity with which he made 
Nature participate in the drama. Only a mountaineer 
like himself, accustomed to follow the paths which wind 
round wooded hill-sides, would have thought of painting 
this scene on an incline, and utilising the declivity for the 
purpose of setting trees and figures directly against the 
horizon. He adopted this arrangement indeed on other 
occasions, notably for the 8. Jerome in the Brera, where 



262 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

again we find the sloping ground and the big oak-trees 
that traverse the picture obliquely and stand out against 
the sky. All who saw the Peter Martyr remembered 
the intense emotion which breathed from the rural 
scene, from the branches illuminated by the miraculous 
appearance of the two angels bearing the palm to the 
martyr, from the rustling foliage, trembling, as it were, 
at the tragedy enacted in its shade, from the grand 
movement of the clouds reddened by the fiery light of 
dying day. Once more, Nature had proved the best 
and most maternal source of inspiration. 

How fully I can enter into the soul and the work of the 
great Cadorian on this fine afternoon of early autumn, 
here at Pieve, breathing the good healthful smell of the 
country, along meadows enamelled with red clover, 
dark blue salvia, colchicum and buttercup. Sturdy 
mountaineer, who wast still painting firmly and vigorously 
when nearing thy hundredth year, it is here I love to 
evoke thee, rather than in the cold galleries of a museum, 
rather even than at Venice, where none will ever eclipse 
thy glory. It was here thou hadst thy purest joys, in the 
midst of these landscapes thy childish eyes gazed at so 
eagerly, on this soil to which thou wast attached by all 
the roots of thy being, in this little town where the illus- 
trious artist of the Most Serene Republic, the familar 
of the greatest men, to whom Doges, Kings, Emperors 
and Popes had sat, was but the son of Gregorio Vecellio. 
There can be no more intimate delight for a man who 
has reached the summit of earthly honours than to 
return every year to the village where he was born. 
Far from artificial life, he comes back to Nature, and to 
the land in the presence of which he need no longer play 
a part, and in whose sight all are equal. It was at 
Pieve, when reverses befell him, that Titian sought 
healing for his stricken soul, and gained strength for 



TITIAN AT PIEVE 263 

further struggles, robust as those forest-trees to which 
Dante, in a magnificent image, compares the springs of 
the soul, those trees which raise themselves again by 
their own vigour after the passing of the storm : 

Come la fronda, che flette la cima 
nal transito nel vento, e poi si leva 
per la propria virtti che la sublima.^ 

In spite of all the honours and splendours of Venice 
it was here, in this modest dwelling, that he felt most at 
home ; and he might have inscribed on it, as did Ariosto 
on his house at Ferrara : Parva, sed apta mihi (small, 
but suited to me). 

How good is life, and how beautiful Nature ! All 
we need is to enjoy both without excess, in perfect 
equilibrium of the faculties. Mountaineers have precision 
both of eye and mind ; they are realists, but realists 
with that yearning for the ideal which the sight of peaks 
ever soaring heavenward inspires. We must not look 
to Titian for the intellectual depths of a Leonardo, or 
the grandiose and pathetic visions of a Michelangelo 
and a Rembrandt ; nor must we ask for the effusions of 
poets who like Correggio let their hearts sing and move 
us by their fervour. Titian dominates his subjects 
and subordinates them to his art with a calm and 
vigorous intelligence, a strength of will, a self-mastery 
which enabled him to excel in every genre. His physiog- 
nomy, his features, his general aspect were those of a 
man of action rather than an artist. He was no dreamer. 
We know that he was careful of his material interests, 
like a peasant. True, these temperaments based on 
practical reason do not move us as do the pure poets, 
do not draw us breathless after them to the regions of 

^ Like to the trees bowing their tops to the passage of the 
wind, and then rising by their own vigour which exalts them. 



264 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

mystery and the infinite ; but they delight the mind 
without agitating it. They use art to show us the beauty 
of things and the joy of life. Conceived in joy, their 
works express and diffuse joy. Is there any better task 
than to teach happiness ? 

But the sun has already disappeared. Only the peaks 
are still aglow. The Marmarole Mountains first flush 
rosily, then pass gradually from soft red to burning 
crimson, and look^s if they were actually ablaze. It is 
twilight, the gorgeous hour d'Annunzio aptly calls the 
hour of Titian, "because then all things glow in rich 
golden tones, like the nude figures of that marvellous 
craftsman, and seem to illumine the sky, rather than 
to receive light therefrom." It was at this hour that 
Titian feasted his eyes on those amber reflections which 
hover over objects as his superb Flora's hair floats over 
her divine flesh. And when night fell, when the last 
gleam faded on the last peak of the Marmarole, he re- 
turned quietly to the old paternal house, and slept the 
healthy sleep of the industrious peasant. 



CHAPTER IV 

BELLUNO 

The stage-coaches which used to ply between Pieve 
and Belluno a few years ago, when I visited them for the 
first time, have made way for powerful motor- vehicles 
which dash along the roads with a great clanking of 
metal, raising whirlwinds of dust. They give no truce 
even for a single day to the old Cadorine forests. They 



CADORE TIMBER 265 

shake and break down the soil of the ancient road to 
Germany, the Via di Lamagna as the Italians call it, 
which in this particular section goes by the name of La 
Cavallera. Fortunately, I was able to hire one of those 
little light carriages owned by the well-to-do peasants of 
the region, and to make my pilgrimage quietly in the 
good sunshine, lulled by the murmur of the foaming 
Piave. 

After leaving Pieve and Tai, the country has still the 
aspect of high mountain regions, and the road winds 
through pine-forests. A rapid descent by three bold 
loops brings us to Perarolo, at the confluence of the 
Boite, a most picturesque and pleasant situation. It is 
from here onward that the Piave, swelled by the waters 
of its tributary, is used for the transport of the famous 
Cadore timber, unrivalled for ship-building and famous 
from the earliest days. Pending the completion of a 
railway which is being made, the trunks of pine and larch 
still go to Venice by water ; and it is interesting to 
note, all along the road, the very ingenious operations 
by which each of the numerous owners of trees and 
factories utilises the stream. But in the face of the 
resulting delays and complications I can understand the 
impatience of the Cadorians for the completion of their 
long promised railway. 

The valley is sometimes so compressed between the 
mountains that there is only just room for the river and 
the rock-hewn road. Many inscriptions recall the 
fighting in these defiles in 1848. After the village of 
Termine, which may be said to mark the southern 
boundary of Cadore, the plain widens a little. The 
cultivated patches increase. The trees expand under 
the warmer sun. On the road we meet groups of young 
women, their faces shaded by light coloured veils, who 
have the robust grace of the Venetian Madonnas. An 



266 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

old woman with a sharp nose and prominent chin, seated 
beside a basket in the open-air market at Ospitale, is 
exactly like the egg-seller in the foreground of the Presen- 
tation ; and to complete the reminiscence, a little girl 
in a blue dress, with a thick plait of hair, has the profile 
of the childish Virgin who is ascending the steps of the 
Temple. 

Towards Longarone, a gay and attractive little market- 
town, the mountains become lower and more distant, 
though the GalUna still commands the plain with its 
pointed beak, the shape of which varies so oddly as one 
approaches it. Then at the Ponte nell' Alpi, the road 
forks. To the left, the old German road continues ; 
after skirting the Bosco del Gran ConsigHo, whose secular 
trees were reserved for the fleet of the Republic, and two 
large ponds — that of San Croce a smiling sheet of water, 
that known as the Lago Morte a motionless expanse of 
the darkest blue — ^it enters Venice by Vittorio and 
Treviso. The road to the right is much less interesting. 
It goes its interminable straight way between monotonous 
stretches of cultivated ground under a fierce sun which 
makes the fresh shades of Belluno all the more agreeable 
to enter. 

Of the Roman past of which it is proud Belluno has 
no traces, save a tomb discovered in the foundations of 
the Church of San Stefano. Nor has it many relics of 
the Middle Ages. Its present aspect bears the impress of 
the Venetian domination. The lion of S. Mark has laid 
his paw on everything. For nearly four centuries 
Belluno was the faithful handmaid of Venice. Then, 
lying on the boundaries of the two rivals, Austria and 
Italy, it underwent all the fluctuations of the fortune of 
war. Ardently patriotic, it was always in the van 
against Austria, and when the plebiscite was taken, 
gave itself almost unanimously to the new kingdom of 



PALAZZO DEI RETTORI 267 

Savoy. Hatred of the black and yellow flag with the 
Imperial Eagle is still hot in the hearts of the Bellunese. 
There is little to say of the actual town. It is a 
provincial centre of no special activity, a city of soldiers 
and officials. Its chief traffic arises from its situation at 
the egress from the Tyrol ; but it gives the impression 
of being merely a halting-place for hurried tourists. 
The streets are interesting, with their arcaded houses 
whose painted fa9ade3 and windows with small carved 
columns recall certain corners of Venice. Two of the 
squares are dignified and spacious : the Piazza Campi- 
tello, the rendezvous of fashionable society, and the 
Piazza del Duomo, where stand the Cathedral, the 
Palazzo dei Rettori, and the Municipio. The last named 
building is modern ; in spite of its Gothic style and the 
rather crude red of its walls, it harmonises well enough 
with its neighbours. As to the Palazzo dei Rettori — now 
the Prefecture — it is the most remarkable structure in 
Belluno. Built in the early years of the Renaissance, 
it is ascribed to Giovanni Candi, the author of the 
beautiful spiral staircase of the Palazzo Contarini dal 
Bavolo at Venice ; the arrangement is very happy, with 
charming details ; the balconies are discreetly elegant ; 
all the capitals are different, and very well carved ; 
the general effect is most harmonious. But the chief 
attraction of Belluno is its situation at a bend of the 
Piave, on a sort of plateau overlooking the valley. 
The river, an impetuous torrent up to this point, slackens 
its speed to embrace the town which it seems to quit 
regretfully ; its slender blue ribbon may be seen for a 
great distance gleaming in the sun and almost disap- 
pearing in a white bed of shingle. Two mountain 
ranges protect Belluno, and bound its horizons : to the 
north, the Agordine Alps with their well-defined rocky 
peaks ; to the south, the wooded and cultivated hills 



268 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

of the Pre-Alps which divide the valley of the Piave from 
the Trevisan plain. 

It would be strange if an Italian city of the impor- 
tance of Beliuno had no local artist worthy of mention. 
Here in Venetia, where beauty blossoms so naturally, 
where the decorative instinct is in the blood, where the 
humblest citizen arranges his dwelling agreeably, 
ornamenting it with galleries and terraces, where even 
the peasants lay out their patches of cultivated ground 
harmoniously, with an eye to the prospect and the general 
effect, Beliuno could not be an exception to the rule. 
Here, as in Tuscany and Umbria, there are few villages 
which have not a pleasant aspect and a work of art to 
show the stranger. How many painters and sculptors 
who, in other countries, would have left glorious names, 
are unknown here to any but students and are sometimes 
even forgotten, because they worked beside rivals too 
numerous, or too renowned ! 

Beliuno is proud of her two Ricci, Sebastiano, the 
skilful decorator, who spent most of his life abroad, 
and his nephew Marco, an agreeable and facile land- 
scape painter. But the glory of the town is associated 
above all with the name of Andrea Brustolon, whom his 
compatriots are fond of describing as the Phidias of 
wood-carvers. His fame, however, has hardly penetrated 
beyond his own district, though Balzac in his Cousin Pons 
speaks of a frame carved by " the famous Brustolon, 
the Michelangelo of wood." Burckhardt, generally so 
exhaustive, does not even mention the artist, nor, 
indeed, does he speak of any of the curiosities of the city, 
which, I think, he cannot have visited. Signer Corrado 
R-icci is more discriminating when he compares the 
sculptor of Beliuno to Sansovino, and declares that " by 
his imagination, his ardour and his accomplishment he 
ranks above most^of his contemporaries," Brustolon 



BRUSTOLON 269 

belongs to that group of Venetian artists who are admir- 
able decorators, but nothing more. When, instead of 
carving isolated figures of a grandiloquent and preten- 
tious kind, they confined themselves to the adornment 
of churches and palaces with gilded stucco and graceful 
and elaborately carved furniture, they produced works 
the magnificence of which is unsurpassable. Taber- 
nacles, crucifixes remarkable for the anguished expres- 
sion of the Saviour, altar-colonnades, volutes loaded 
with clusters of fruit and foliage, the rich armorial 
shields of princes and bishops, furniture ornamented with 
fruit, animals and human figures — such specimens of 
Brustolon's works are scattered throughout the Tjo-ol 
and Venetia. Some of these carvings are veritable 
pictures in relief. The best to my mind were those in the 
Church of San Pietro : the Death of S. Francis Xavier 
and more especially a Crucifixion, in which I was struck 
by the noble attitude of the Virgin and by a Magdalen 
kneeling at the foot of the Cross, whose expression of 
passionate grief and love is very moving. 

Until the prolongation of the line towards Pieve di 
Cadore is completed, Belluno is the terminus of the 
railway which descends quietly upon Treviso, skirting 
the banks of the Piave. The valley is still shut in by 
fairly high mountains with jagged crests, among which 
the most prominent is the majestic Pizzocco, with a sum- 
mit resembling a Doge's cap. On a solid stone bridge 
we cross the terrible Cor de vole, which we saw at its 
source near Arabba on the Dolomite road ; according to 
a local legend the troops of Attila were checked by a 
sudden rise in its waters. On the way we see the Villa 
Colvago, where Goldoni's comic genius awoke, and where 
he wrote the first two of his hundred and fifty plays. 
After Feltre, an ancient Roman town in a pleasant 
position on the height, the valley narrows to a savage 



270 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

defile where the Piave becomes a torrent. Then the 
horizon opens out again. The river once more spreads 
its bed of pebbles. The vines chng to the trees and 
hang in garlands. The houses and the farms are painted 
in vivid colours and sometimes adorned with frescoes. 
Campaniles shoot up among the trees. The great 
Venetian plain stretches before us as far as the eye can 
reach. 



CHAPTER V 

PORDENONE 

It is a delightful pilgrimage across Friuli in the joy 
of the morning, through meadows spangled with dew. 
The distance is blurred by mist. The glistening highway 
dazzles one, like a steel ribbon unrolled in the sun. 

The way is beset with memories of the Empire, and of 
the astounding epic of the youthful Bonaparte. Friuli 
and Upper Venetia are studded with towns which fur- 
nished titles for the Marshals and Generals of the glorious 
army. After the lapse of a century, the old exploits 
still live, and there is no osteria in this region whose walls 
are not adorned with engravings setting forth episodes 
in the battles of Arcole and Rivoli. In spite of passing 
clouds, the French will never be looked upon as enemies 
in this ItaUan land. And I know of no higher tribute 
to a conqueror. 

The lofty Campanile of Pordenone emerges from the 
luxuriant masses of foliage that give shade to the town. 
Squares and avenues are planted with huge chestnuts 



PORDENONE 271 

and planes. Monte Cavallo, already covered with snow, 
rears its mighty ridge on the horizon. If foreigners are 
rare at Udine, here they must be quite unknown, ta 
judge by the sensation I create. There is indeed little 
to see in the birthplace of Pordenone, where I imagined 
he would be better represented. In the council- 
chamber of the Municipio, where the little local museum 
is installed, I found only a Group of Saints, remarkable 
enough in colour and handling, and a narrow fresco, 
which, according to the custodian, had been removed 
from the house inhabited by the artist ; it represents a 
kind of rustic ballet, and is quite unlike any other work of 
his known to me. The same penury is to be found in the 
Cathedral : in the choir, there is an Apotheosis ofS. Mark, 
unfinished and damaged ; on a pillar two figures in poor 
preservation, a S. Erasmus and a S. Eoch, to whom 
Pordenone is supposed to have given his own features ; 
finally, on the altar of S. Joseph, a fine panel of 1515, The 
Virgin enthroned between S. Christopher and S. Joseph. 
The Virgin, whose mantle is spread over four donors, 
has a deliciously childish face, and the landscape, in 
which Pordenone's hand is very recognisable, is exqui- 
sitely graceful. But all this offers scanty data by 
which to appreciate the artist, and had I not seen his 
frescoes at Cremona and Piacenza, I should form a very 
false idea of him who aspired to rival Titian, and whose 
painting — brutal, violent, dramatic and disorderly — 
proves the truth of Buff on 's dictum for artists as for 
writers : The style is the man. Pordenone spent his 
life quarrelling first with one and then with the other, 
including his own brother, and he probably died of 
poison administered by an enemy. The vigorous life 
and movement of his works sometimes suggest Rubens 
and even Michelangelo, who, it seems, thought highly of 
his talent. In any case, no artist of his day was more 



272 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

accomplished ; it is not necessary to accept literally 
Vasari's story which tells how he painted a sign in a few 
minutes for a tradesman while the latter was at mass, 
but it is certain that he had extraordinary facility, and 
that bravura of the brush so essential to the fresco- 
painter. But we must not look for grace, or moderation, 
or, above all, for thought in Pordenone's work. Some- 
times he imitated Giorgione, sometimes Palma, sometimes 
Titian ; Burckhardt justly remarks that he is always 
superficial, and even in his best works we miss that 
absorption in the theme, that renunciation of self which 
is the art of the great masters. He tries to amaze, and 
succeeds in so doing, but he does not charm. He who 
dreamed of eclipsing Titian survives for us mainly as 
the disastrous precursor of the Bolognese. 



CHAPTER VI 

UDINE 

" Udine is a fine town," said Chateaubriand, who was 
impressed mainly by the Municipio, and its portico 
imitated from that of the Doge's palace. The author of 
the Memoires d' outre Tomhe is right ; and I am surprised 
that this delightful city, the gem of Friuli, should be so 
little knowTi, in spite of the attractions it can offer to its 
guests, an enchanting aspect, one of the most beautiful 
squares in Italy, an incomparable situation in the centre 
of the Venetian plain, good local painters and one of the 
finest collections of Tiepolos in the world. The German 
and Austrian tourists who come down to Venice by the 



UDINE 273 

Pontebba line sometimes visit Udine while waiting for a 
train, or to spend the night ; but the French and English 
travellers who seek it are rare. Chateaubriand only saw 
it because it happened to lie on his way when he was 
going to Prague to rejoin Charles X. In a general way 
my compatriots are so fascinated by Venice that they 
only tear themselves away at the last moment, when they 
have to be making their way homeward. I myself, 
much as I have seen of out of the way comers of Italy, 
and often as I have traversed the adorable Veneto in its 
crimson autumn mantle, had never before made up my 
mind to go beyond Conegliano and take the few days 
necessary to visit Friuli and its capital. 

This year I determined to do so. I arrived at Udine 
one September evening, and the next day I had the joy 
so dear to the real traveller, of waking up in a city quite 
unknown to me, but which I felt to be full of promise. 
The night before an omnibus with rattling windows had 
jolted me over the badly paved and ill-lighted streets ; 
I had seen the dim outlines of buildings I tried to identify 
by the help of my guide-book ; but on the whole, all the 
surprises of discovery were still before me. Of course, 
these are not uniformly pleasant, and often one is dis- 
appointed by one's first encounter with a city ; only by 
degrees does one yield to its reticent charm. But here 
the revelation was immediate. My arrival in the little 
square bathed in the morning sunshine, the climb to 
the Castello, and, from the high esplanade, the circular 
view of the immense Friulian plain spreading out in a 
double fan round Udine, will always be one of my most 
treasured memories, rich as they are in impressions of 
this kind. 

On emerging from my hotel I had only noted a town of 
no very individual character, clean and animated, with 
wide arcaded streets and houses of the Venetian type ; 

T 



274 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

then, suddenly, at a turn in the street, I came upon the 
square I was seeking. I knew it was fine ; I had never 
supposed it would be so magnificent. Surrounded 
by palaces and porticoes, adorned with statues and 
columns, dominated by the lofty mass of the castle, from 
whatever point one looks at it it is eminently picturesque. 
Everything harmonises perfectly ; there is nothing 
superfluous. And yet in a very restricted space we have, 
on one side a 16th century loggia called the Loggia di 
San Giovanni, and the clock-tower of the same style 
as that of Venice ; in the middle, a fountain designed 
by Giovanni da Udine, two columns, one crowned 
by the lion of S. Mark, two figures of giants, a statue 
of Peace given by Napoleon I to commemorate the 
treaty of Campo Formio, and, of course, an equestrian 
statue of Victor Emmanuel ; finally, on the other side, 
the charming Loggia del Lionello, called after the local 
architect who built the town-hall in the 15th century 
from a design which was a very clever adaptation of the 
Doge's Palace. This combination, above which rise 
the bell-tower of the Church of Santa Maria, and the 
imposing walls of the Castle, is one of the most fascinating 
sights offered to the tourist by the little cities of Italy. 
Unfortunately, the Municipio was almost completely 
destroyed by fire in 1876 ; only the walls have survived, 
but we can still admire in their original state the alter- 
nate courses of red and white marble, the slender columns 
and their varied capitals, the little balustrade that gives 
so much elegance to the, loggia, and, in a niche at the 
corner of the building; the Virgin, carved in 1448 by 
Buono, the author of the Porta della Carta. 

To go up to the Castello one passes under an arch 
designed, it is said, by Palladio ; it was formerly sur- 
mounted by the Venetian Uon, as we may see in a view 
of the town by Palma the Younger, in the Museum. For 



WORKS IN MUSEUM 275 

all this region, the Most Serene Republic was in deed that 
" planter of lions," spoken of by Chateaubriand in the 
pages he wrote in praise of Venice in September, 1833, 
pages which are among the finest in the Mimoires 
d'Outre-tombe. An earthquake overthrew the old castle 
which used to stand on the top of the hill ; it was 
replaced by the present building, which has been suc- 
cessively used for a variety of purposes ; it was by turns 
a fortress, the residence of the Patriarchs and a prison ; 
at present it houses various departments of the munici- 
pality and the Museum. A double staircase leads to the 
great hall which has been classed as a national monument 
in deference to its vast proportions and the remains of 
frescoes which still adorn its walls. Unfortunately, these 
old paintings have been in a very bad state ever since the 
time when the castle served as barracks. Soldiers, 
be they Italian or French, are dangerous neighbours for 
works of art. Udine, like Avignon, learned this by harsh 
experience. 

In the Museum I noticed an amusing panorama of the 
city drawn by Callot in 1600, a delicate gray Canaletto, 
a little study by Veronese for his Martyrdom of S8. 
Mark and MarcellinuSy and three Tiepolos. But the 
town is so rich in the works of this master that I do not 
linger over these, and I should have preferred to see 
local artists more fully represented here. I had some 
difficulty in finding a fairly good Coronation of the Virgin, 
by Girolamo da Udine. Those who wish to study the 
creator of the school, Martino, better known as PeUegrino 
da San Danielle, must leave Udine and go either to 
Aquileia, to see the altar-piece in the Cathedral ; to 
San Daniele, his native town ; or to Cividale, the ancient 
Lombard capital, which guards, together with many 
precious archaeological treasures, the painter's master- 
piece, the Madonna di Santa Maria dei Battuti. Here, 

T 2 



276 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

in the Museum of Udine, there are only Four Evangelists 
by him, so black and damaged that it is hardly possible 
to distinguish them. 

But why should I stay shut up in these dark rooms 
when from the windows I catch glimpses of the superb 
panorama to be enjoyed from the esplanade behind the 
castle ? I know very few vistas so vast and so magni- 
ficent. If, as tradition declares, this hill was made by 
Attila's orders that he might gaze from afar at the 
burning of Aquileia, we must admit that the barbarian 
was no less consummate a stage-manager than Nero. 
In all Italy, where from the earliest ages there has been 
a genius for the development of those perspectives which 
bring infinity within range of a town, there is no more 
superb position. Though the altitude is only a few 
yards, the spectator has the illusion of being high in 
space. It is a privileged situation for a capital ; in the 
very centre of the country, it is able to overlook and keep 
watch on the whole of it. Friuli lies about Udine in 
an almost regular curve ; a gigantic amphitheatre, 
which slopes downward very gradually from the snow- 
capped Alps to the green Pre-Alps, from these to the 
hills covered with woods and vineyards, from the hills 
to the gentle incline of the plain, and from the plain to 
the lagoons. Seen from here, the circle of the Camic 
Alps forms a high, stern barrier dominated on the East 
by the Canino, and on the West, very far back in the 
direction of Gemona, by the Cogliana, the highest 
peak in the region. Although these heights are not 
quite 9,000 feet, they look imposing, viewed thus almost 
from the level of the sea. The first frosts of September 
have already covered them with snow. Two youths, 
who must have come down from them quite lately, gaze 
at them with the mournful home-sick eyes of mountain- 
eers in a flat country. They are typical sons of Friuli, 



TIEPOLO AT UDINE 277 

strong and laborious, sturdier than the Venetians. 
At my request they name the distant peaks, and point 
out the more important towns we can distinguish on the 
river-banks, or in the folds of the hill-sides : Cividale, 
San Daniele, Palmanova, with its starry fortress, 
San Vito, Pordenono. Quite to the South are the lagoons 
where Aquileia and Grado slumber, and sometimes 
even, in clear weather, the line of the Adriatic maybe 
seen as far as the island of Anadyomene . . . An 
admirable spectacle that I weary not of contemplating 
until the hour when the setting sun sheds over every- 
thing that " Titian light " of which Chateaubriand 
speaks when he compares Venice to a beautiful woman 
whose perfumed hair is stirred by the evening breeze, 
and who dies, acclaimed by all the graces and smiles 
of Nature . . . An admirable spectacle indeed, perhaps 
even more inspiring on the morrow, in the sunshine of the 
new day. And yet I must not linger. How can I leave 
Udine without having seen its Tiepolos ? Nowhere can 
the traveller do fuller justice to the painter whose fame 
grows year by year, and who, to our more enlightened 
modem eyes, is no longer merely the delightful improvi- 
satore, the virtuoso in whom all the folly of the Venetian 
18th century is incarnate. I recall the chapter in which 
Maurice Barres exclaims : " My comrade, my other 
self, is Tiepolo ! " The author of Un Homme libre, who, 
no doubt, would hesitate to sign this confession of 
dilettantism to-day, has exaggerated the artificial side 
of Tiepolo. Confronted with his great compositions 
scattered throughout Venetia, we form a very diSerent 
idea of the painter, who, far from being an artist of the 
decadence, a kind of Bernini of painting, was a master, 
not only of grace, but of health and vigour. This 
reputed improvisatore was a laborious worker ; in proof 
of this we need but adduce the numerous sketches he 



278 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

made for works which would seem, from their accom- 
plished execution, to have been thrown off without effort. 
Artists who have a real gift never suggest the labour of 
creation. Camille Mauclair aptly compares Tiepolo to 
Mozart, who seems no less facile, whereas no musical 
language is more learned and complex than his. It is 
good to show that a difi&culty has been overcome ; 
but better still to overcome it without showing that 
we have done so, for it is the function of genius to 
place before us " the marvellous result of knowledge 
arid effort, as if it were nature itself." 

Of course Tiepolo is the painter of that city and 
period where and when the joy of life was carried to its 
extreme limits ; but he was also a great-grandson of 
the sixteenth century, of the race of great Venetian 
masters who had died out over a hundred years before 
with Tintoretto. 

The Udine works are most interesting. They enable 
us to study the painter in the flower of his youth, in 
his maturity, and almost in his old age, for they were 
painted in 1720, 1734 and 1759 respectively. Unfor- 
tunately, the frescoes in the Cathedral have been ruined 
by clumsy restorations, and are of little value. In the^ 
Museum I saw a mediocre S. Francis de Sales, a Meeting 
of the Council of the Order of Malta, more interesting 
historically than artistically, and a fairly good Angel of 
the Apocalypse hovering over a fine landscape. But 
to recognise the real genius of Tiepolo, we must visit 
the episcopal palace and the Oratorio deUa Purita. 
The archiepiscopal palace, built' at the beginning of the 
seventeenth century for the Patriarchs of AquUeia, 
who long claimed to rank with the Popes, is now the 
home of their successors, the Bishops of Udine. It 
was one of the last of the patriarchs, Denys Dolfino, 
who commissioned Tiepolo to decorate its rooms. 



TIEPOLO AT UDINE 279 

Individually, these frescoes are not the best painted 
by the artist ; but their gay and luminous general 
effect is most pleasing to the eye. The Fall of the 
Rebel Angels y on the vault of the main staircase, is a 
vigorous and dramatic composition, of astonishing 
boldness of movement. The decoration of a ceiling 
was always a delight to Tiepolo ; in no other genre 
did he more fully display the resources of his fancy and 
his imagination. The decoration of the Oratory was 
executed twenty-five years later. Tiepolo, less energetic 
now, entrusted the lateral walls to his son, and only 
painted the Immiculate Conception over the altar, 
and the magnificent Assumption of the ceiling. The 
latter is one of his masterpieces : nobility of invention, 
mastery of execution and splendour of colour are carried 
to the highest possible point, and in common with his 
distinguished biographer, Signor Pompeo Molmenti, 
I admire the art with which Tiepolo " preserved an 
unforgettable air of sweetness and grace in the midst of 
such a display of brilliant colours and striking ideas." 
Here, as before in the Cathedral at Este, I wondered 
at the ease with which he rose to the greatness of his 
subject and attuned his mind to the solemnity of the 
place in which he was painting, without the help of any 
intimate belief, as far as we can judge. Like Tintoretto 
before him and Delacroix after him— to quote but 
two examples — Tiepolo proves that the genius of an 
artist may sometimes rise to the beauty of religious 
poetry without the aid of fa th. 



280 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

CHAPTER VII 

AQUILEIA 

This decaying town, to which the war has given a 
momentary importance, was an important Roman city. 
Was it really, as we are told, over twelve miles in 
circumference, and had it 600,000 inhabitants ? I 
know not. But be this as it may, the *' second Rome " 
as it was caUed, the favourite residence of Augustus, 
the concentration camp of the army, the naval base, 
the splendidissima colonia of the Empire was a genuine 
capital. But, ravaged by Attila, supplanted by Grado 
and Venice, which demolished most of its buildings in 
order to construct their own, and gradually forced 
inland by the alluvial deposits of the Isonzo and the 
Natisone, it almost disappeared from the map. 

Its Cathedral survives to bear witness to its former 
splendour, and here we may read the record of its 
vicissitudes. The magnificent mosaic, discovered by 
accident some years ago, is all that remains of the 
original basilica. Some workmen, digging to discover 
the source of a leak, laid bare the most important 
mosaic of the fourth century, about three feet below 
the nave. It was unskilfully repaired by the Austrians, 
and Ugo Ojetti is now engaged upon a more perfect 
restoration ; he drew my attention to the variety 
and richness of the ornamentation : decorative friezes, 
heads, animals, picturesque scenes, Victories with 
outspread wings, etc. 

On these earlier foundations a Romanesque church 
was built at the beginning of the eleventh century ; 
the choir and the transept vaults still exist. The nave 



MUSEUM OF AQUILEIA 281 

was destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt about 
1380 ; the Gothic arches rested on the ancient columns, 
the capitals of which were raised when necessary. The 
decoration was due to the Venetian Renaissance, notably 
the fine pulpit in the style of the Lombardi, placed 
exactly in front of the choir, in the central axis of the 
church. The new priest, the learned archaeologist 
Celso Costantini, explained to me how much this arrange- 
ment is appreciated by the preacher, who is thus enabled 
to face his entire audience. Four large Austrian shells 
are placed on the pulpit, recalling the recent drama. 

One might linger long in this church ; there are some 
interesting old frescoes in the choir and a good picture 
by Pellegrino da San Daniele ; the crypt is decorated 
with paintings of the thirteenth century. But time 
presses, and I am anxious to visit the Museum, on the 
door of which Museo Nazionale is already inscribed. 
The entrance is under a colonnade shaded by wisteria 
in blossom. Cypresses, laurels, pines and magnolias 
make a delicious setting in which it should be easy to 
forget the horrors so lately witnessed. 

The peace of the Museum, slumbering in the midst of 
its beautiful garden, was rudely disturbed a few days 
before the declaration of war. On April 27, 1915, 
Austrian officials carried off some 600 of the most 
valuable smaller objects, coins, ambers and bronzes ; 
but to avoid alarming the population they left all the 
sculpture, with the exception of the bust of the Empress 
Livia. In spite of these depredations, the Museum 
is very rich, and it would take several days to explore 
it thoroughly. Its great attraction is that it is purely 
local ; no object from outside is admitted. Statues, 
tombs, medals and jewels were all found at Aquileia, 
and this gives us a good idea of the importance of the 
Roman city. 



282 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

The Museum is especially rich in relics of the time of 
Augustus, who made the city a sort of headquarters 
whence he controlled the operations of the legions 
commanded by his sons-in-law, Tiberius and Drusus. 
Suetonius declares that he had chosen Aquileia ut 
bellia Pannonicis atque Germanicis aut interveniret aut 
non longe abesset.^ 

Strangely indeed does history repeat itself, bringing 
together within a few miles the headquarters of a 
Roman Emperor and of a King of Italy in the eternal 
struggle of the Latins against the northern barbarians. 
The soldiers who fell on the Carso and the Isonzo sleep 
near the funereal monuments of the Imperial legionaries. 

Aquileia never forgot its debt to Augustus, and 
piously preserved the portraits of his family. Though 
the bust of his wife has disappeared, there are statues 
in the Museum of the Emperor as a young man, of 
Tiberius and of Claudius. 

After this brilliant period when the Empire extended 
as far as the Danube, the military importance of Aquileia 
declined ; but the town then entered upon a period 
of economic prosperity which lasted until th« fourth 
century, when Bishop Theodore built the basilica of 
which all that remains is the mosaic lately discovered. 

Systematic excavation would no doubt reveal other 
marvels ; this will be the task of the new authorities. 
I think there is a great future for Aquileia among the 
many artistic towns of Italy. 

Before leaving for Udine, I pass into the burial ground 
which surrounds the church. Noble cypresses seem 
to be lifting a prayer to heaven. Between their trunks 
are the graves of soldiers who fell in the first battles. 
The surroundings are deeply impressive, and I can 

1 In order not to be remote from the Pannonian and 
Germanic wars. 



THE "REDEEMED" DISTRICTS 283 

understand how they must have Inspired d'Annunzio, 
who made a speech here on All Saints* Day last year. 
At the request of Ugo Ojetti the city of Florence sent 
young plants of laurel and rose to relieve the gloom of 
the yews by their crimson and heroic note. Aquileia is 
no longer the weeping woman depicted by Carducci : 

Passa come un sospir su'l Garda argenteo : 
e pianto d' Aquileia su per le solitudini.^ 

The famous Quando ? (When ?) of the Saint Italiqut 
is no longer asked in this case. The ancient city of 
Augustus was restored to Italy a year ago. 



CHAPTER VIII 

TBENT AND TRIESTE "REDEEMED." 

They are delivered at last, those irredente (unre- 
deemed) territories, now redente, for the recovery of 
which Italy declared war on her ancient ally, and ranged 
herself by our side. 

La primavera in fior mena tedeschi. 

" Springtime with its flowers brings us the Germans," 
sighed Carducci. But the glorious autumn of this year 
has seen them hurrying back over the mountains 
faster than they came down from them. What enthu- 
siasm must be lifting up all hearts in the Trentino, whose 
roads are dotted with columns commemorating the 
heroic struggle against the eternal enemy, and in Friuli, 
where the name of Giovanni Battista Cella is still 

^ A sigh seemed to pass over silvery Garda : it is the lament o f 
Aquileia above in the solitudes. 



284 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

cherished, that Cella whose bust is in the loggia at 
UdiQe, and whom Garibaldi called the bravest of the 
brave, prode fra i prodi. What joy throughout the 
whole peninsula ! And what joy too among those who 
have long loved Italy ! 

A few months ago, at the end of a lecture I gave at 
the Sorbonne, I ended with the wish that soon — ^not 
this year, I said, but next year — I might be able to 
travel over the Dolomite road again and find it Italian 
throughout. I did not think my wish would be so 
quickly granted, nor that I should so soon be able to 
triumph over a Viennese critic who once laughed at me 
for giving their Italian names to regions which he' 
assured me were " politically and permanently 
Austrian." And now the barbarians have been driven 
out of Titian's country. All the beUs of Cadore must 
be celebrating the Italian victory. Trent, the chief 
town of the Department of the Upper Adige, has become 
the capital of the seventieth province of Italy. 

The Austrians are said to have laid a mine under 
the monument to Dante in one of the squares of Trent, 
meaning on their retreat to blow up a memorial which 
proclaimed publicly, almost provocatively, the irreden- 
tism of the town and of the province. They had not 
forgotten the verses written by Carducci in 1906, at 
the time of its inauguration : 

Dante si spazia da ben cinquecento 
Anni de I'Alpi su'l tremendo spatto 
Ed or s'^ fermo, e par oh' aspetti, a Trento. . . .^ 

For what, if not for the liberation, the expulsion of 
the barbarians, the flight of the usurpers to the other 
side of the mountains, to the pine-forests of Germany, 

1 Dante has been wandering for five hundred years on the 
terrible slopes of the Alps, and now he halts and seems to be 
waiting at Trent. . . . 



" QUANDO ? " 285 

where, as Chateaubriand said, the very sun has *' an 
evil face." Let us hope that the flight was so precipitate 
that there was no time to destroy the statue. 

In any case, the Austrian officers will no longer 
amuse themselves by firing their pistols at it. A free 
and joyous people now lays flowers at its feet. Dante 
is no longer listening anxiously on his high stone pedestal. 
. . . What he hears now is the murmur of thousands of 
voices repeating the prophetic verses in which, six 
hundred years ago, he fixed the natural frontiers of 
Italy north of Trent and east of Istria, as far as the 
Gulf of Quarnero " which bounds Italy and bathes her 
frontier." 

And I think, too, of that spring day in war-time, when 
I gazed on the other hostage city from a tower at Grado, 
on a little island of the Adriatic lagoon, from which 
the Italians had driven the Austrians at the beginning 
of hostilities. After breakfasting in the naval officers' 
mess, I went, in company with two French sub- 
lieutenants — aviators who have covered themselves 
with glory — to the belvedere whence the enemj^ coast 
could be seen. With what a thrill of emotion I saw 
before me. Trieste, lying indolently along the shore 
at the foot of those hills which make such a dark and 
stately setting for the light tints of its houses. With 
a field-glass I was able to distinguish the principal 
buildings of the Tergeste of Augustus, where everything 
speaks eloquently of Roman power and the glory of the 
lion of S. Mark. Here again Carducci's verses rose to 
my lips, and I repeated the famous " Quando ? " of his 
Salut Italique. 

« « )ti ♦ « )|e 

The long expected answer to this " Quando ? " has 
at last been given by the historic communique from 



286 WANDERINGS IN ITALY 

General Diaz : " Our troops have occupied Trent 
and have landed at Trieste. The Italian tricolour is 
flying over the Castello de Buon Consiglio and over 
San Giusto." What a sudden and splendid realisation 
in unhoped for conditions of the burning message 
which fell from the skies one morning last year, when 
Gabriele d'Annunzio threw down these prophetic words 
to the inhabitants of Trieste from his aeroplane : 

" Brothers, take courage ! I tell you, I swear to 
you that the Italian flag shall be hoisted over the great 
arsenal, on the top of San Giusto. Courage and 
endurance ! The end of your martyrdom is at hand ! 
The dawn of joy is even now reddening. Hovering 
over you on these Italian wings, I throw down my heart 
and this message to you in earnest of my promise.'* 

The day has come. The Italian flag floats over the 
arsenal and San Giusto, as the poet foretold in his 
superb Ode on the Latin Resurrection, written at the 
beginning of the war. Italy will be able to grave the 
blazon of the House of Savoy " on the stone of Roman 
Pola, on the Adriatic restored to the Lion.'* 

The windows of Trieste are a-flutter with the banners 
prepared by her people in silence, in the secrecy of their 
homes and the passion of their hearts. 



THE END. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abano, 216-7 

iEmilius Lepidus, 76 

^milius Scaurus, 109 

Alberti, L. B., 113-116, 118, 126 

Aldus Manutius, 111 

Alfleri, 228 

Alunno, Niccolo, 136 

Amadeo of Pavia, 61-3 

Ampezzo, 249-50 

d'Annunzio, 50, 61, 206, 214, 217, 237, 

249, 283, 286 
Antelami, B., 83 
Antonelli, 24 
Aquileia, 277, 280-3 
Aretino, 233 
Aries. 83 
Arqu^, 222-30 
Assisi 140—6 

Augustus, 280, 282-3, 285 
Avogrado, Brigitta, 50 

Balzao, 268 

Barbaro, brothers, 189 

Barr^s, Maurice, 35, 45, 80, 99, 155, 

196, 277 
Bassano, 182-8 ; tee also Ponte, Da 
Battaglia, 216-7 
Bayard, 50 

Beauharnais, Eug5ne de, 183, 211 
Begarelli, 94-5 
Bellagio, 35, 41,66-72 
Belluno, 183, 264-9 
Bentivoglio, A., 104 
Bergamo, 57-65 
Beyle, B..,see Stendhal 
Biandronuo, 33 
Boccati, 134-5, 137 
Bologna, 97-104 

Giovanni da, 96, 101 
Bolzano, 243-5 
Bonfigli, 134-5, 137 
Bonvicino, see Moretto, II 
Bordone, Paris, 232-3 
Borgo San Donnino, 79-83 
Borgosesia, 27 
BotticeUi, 238 
Bramante, 37, 110 
Bregia, Pietro da, 35 
Brenta, the, 196-7, 200, 202, 205 
Brescia, 48-57 
Brosses, President de, 59, 92, 97, 99, 

143, 156, 198, 202 
Brustolon, A., 268-9 Faenza, 105-7 

Buono, 274 Falzarego, 247 

WANDEBINQS IN ITALY 289 



Bnrckhardt, 62, 84, 107, 272 
Byron, 149, 196, 208-9, 225,228, 231 

Cadenabbia, 35, 71 

Cadore, 27, 253 

Callot, 275 

Canaletto, 275 

Canova, 184, 187 

Carducci, 39, 49, 70, 254, 283, 285 

Carracci, the, 98-9 

Castelfranco, 234-40 

Cella, G. B., 283 

Cernobbio, 38 

Cesena, 110-11 

Charlemagne, 160 

Chateaubriand, 81, 199, 215-16, 228, 

272, 275, 277, 285 
CigoU, 261 
Cima, 178-9 
Claudian, 216 
Clitumnus, the, 129, 149 
Colleonl, Bartolomeo, 62-4 

Chapel, 61-4 

Medea, 62-3 
Comabbio, 33 
Como, Cathedral, 31, 35-7, 41 

Lake, 32-3, 35, 40-1 
Conegliano, 177-182 
Contarini, F., 207 
Cornaro, L., 222 

Correggio, 22, 29, 31, 53, 83-9, 98 
Cortina, 246-8, 252 
Costantini, C.,281 
Courajod, 252 
Coyer, Abb6, 81 
Cremona, Cathedral, 61 

Dante, 16, 46, 79, 109-10, 112 ,129, 

142, 172, 227, 231, 263 
Dolomites, the, 245-50 
Domodossola, 11 
Donnay, Maurice, 188 
Duccio, A. di, 116-7 
Dumas, 42, 81, 244 

Emilia, 75 

Emilia, Via, 75-6 

Emo family, 193 

Este, 220, 222 

d'Este, VUla, 38 

Euganean Hills, 215-16, 221, 223 



U 



290 



INDEX 



Fanzolo, 193 

Famese, Alessandro and Ranuccio, 

77,82 
Feltre, 269 

Ferrari, Gaudenzio, 15, 28-32 
Ferrigli Palace, 207 
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 134-5, 137 
Foix, Gaston de, 50 
Foligno, 136, 148 
Forli, 107, 109 

Melozzo da, 108, 136 
Forlimpopoli, 110 
Foscari, Francesco, 59 

Villa, 201, 204 
Foscarihi, A., 207 
Francesca, Piero della, 136 
Francis of Assisi, S., 69, 113, 131-3, 

150 
Frigimelica, 210 
Friuli, 276-7 
Fusina, 197-200 

GaribaI/DI, 284 

Gautier, Th^ophile, 49 

Gentile da Fabriano, 136 

Giorgione, 235-9 

Giotto, 150 

Giusti Gardens, 155-60 

Goethe, 59, 143, 165-7, 169, 172-7, 244 

Goldoni, 269 

Gozzoli, Benozzo, 136, 149, 150-2 

Grado. 277, 280, 285 

Guercino, 99 

Guglielmo, 93 

Guiccioli, Countess, 209, 228 

Guido, 99 

Heine, H., 46 

Henri III., 172, 203-4, 207 

ISEO, Lake, 40-8, 70 
Isotta, 112-3, 119 

Laiandb, 197 
Lario, Lake, 12, 71 
Laura, 225, 227, 230 
Leonardo, 21, 58, 98 
Leopardi, 46, 172 
Lionello, 274 
Lombardi, A., 101 
Lorrain, Claude, 81 
Lotto, L., 232 
Lucretius, 259 
Luini, 17-23 

Maqgiore, Lake, 32-3 
Malatesta, 110-14, 126 
Malchiostro Chapel, 53, 78, 232 
Malcontenta, 201-5 
Manin, L., 189 
Manni, G. 139 
Marconi, Rocco, 233 
Martin V., Pope, 101 
Martino, see San Daniele 



Maser, 188-93 

Mauclair, C, 278 

Maximilian of Mexico, 211 

MasTiard, 80 

Medici.L. de',91, 171 

Melozzo, see Forli 

Michel, Andr6, 29 

Michelangelo, 95, 111, 165, 184, 232 

Michelet, 46 

Milan, 11, 17, 21, 33, 37, 58-9, 61 

Mira, 205-9 

Misson, 82 

Mocchi, Fr., 77 

Modena, 91-6 

Molmenti, 213, 220, 279 

Monate, 33 

Monselice, 214-7 

Montaigne, 81, 141, 143, 244 

Montefalco, 148 

Moretto, II, 51-7, 233 

Moroni, 55 

Musset, A. de, 85, 178, 196 

Napoieon I., 167, 184, 199, 211, 212, 

274 
Napoleon III., 211 
Nolhac, P. de, 223, 229 
Novara, 11, 23-6, 29 
Nuzio, Matteo, 111 

Oroagna, 47 
Orta, Lake, 11-17 

Padfa, 60, 214-5 

Palladio, 48, 51, 162-8, 170, 172, 176- 

6, 188-9, 193, 201-2, 204, 274 
Palma, 274 
Parma, 83-91 
Pavia, Certosa of, 37, 61-2 
Perkins, 101 
Perrier, Du., 204 
Perugia, 123-30 
Perugino, 129, 135, 137-8 
Petrarch, 142, 196, 216, 224-30 
Piacenza, 76-9, 81 
Piccolo mini, Sylvius ^neas,142 
Pieve di Cadore, 253-264 
Pisanl family, 207, 210-13 
Pisano, Giovanni, 130-1 

Niccol6, 101, 130-1 
Pliny, 36, 39, 149, 170 
Politian, 114 
Ponte, Da, family, 184-6 
Pordehone, 66, 78, 232, 270-2 
Poussin, 81 

QUEROIA, Jacopo della, 100-4 

Raphael, 125, 129 
Ravenna, 110 
Renan, 129, 146 
Reymond, Marcel, 98, 103 
Eicci, Corrado, 268 

Marco, 268 

Sebastiano, 268 



INDEX 



291 



Rimini, 111-119 
Rocchicciola, 147 
Rodari, the brother" , 87 
Romanlno, 52, 65-7, 78 
Rosa, Mount, 17, 26, 27, 83 
Rousseau, J. J,, 69 
Rubicon, the, 111 
Ruskin, 143 

San Danielb, P. da, 275, 281 

San Giulio, island of, 12, 14, 16 

Sand, Georges, 40, 86-8 

Sansovino, 190 

Saronno, 17-29 

Scamozzi, 163, 167, 175, 217 

Schneider, 124 

Serbellonl, ViUa, 16, 24, 66 

Shelley, 220-1 

Signorelli, 127, 136 

Spagna, Lo, 139 

Stendhal, 23, 33-4, 48, 58, 71, 77,89, 

90, 99, 228 
Str^, 210-14 

TAINE, 32, 35-7, 41, 49, 188 

Tasso, 38, 69 

Tavemola, 43 

Termine, 265 

Tiepolo, 213, 220, 272, 277-9 

Titian, 56-7, 231, 232, 253-4 



Torno, 89 
Trent. 284-5 
Trentlno, the, 283-6 
Treviso; 57, 59, 78, 187, 231-8 
Girolamo da, 52, 238 

Udine, 272-9 
Giovanni da, 274 
Girolamo da, 275 

Vai^RT, 156 

Varallo, 26-32 

Varese, 32-4 

Vasari, 103, 133, 193, 272 

Venice, 59, 118, 192, 197, 202-3, 210, 

239, 253 
Vercelli, 29 

Verona, 59-60, 93, 155-61 
Veronese, Paolo, 189-92, 194, 202, 

275 
Vicenza, 45, 67, 60, 65, 161-76, 202 
Virgil, 39, 40, 71, 229-30, 259 
Visconti, F. M., 69 
Vittoria, Alessandro, 189-90 

WmOKELMANN, 263 

Wyzewa, T. de, 29, 31 

Zelotti, B., 194, 202 
Zenone, 204 



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